


The Lost Jedi

by Loeka



Series: Ripples In The Force [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Family, Force-Sensitive Finn, Friendship, Gen, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Minor Poe Dameron/Finn, One-sided Kylo Ren/Rey, Self-Insert, Skywalker Family Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loeka/pseuds/Loeka
Summary: In which a boy and a girl who saw the first two trilogies, but not the new movies, get reborn into the Star Wars universe. As Ben Solo and Rey. In some ways things remain the same.In other ways things change. A lot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing my best to make sure you don't need to read part 1 to understand this story. The only thing you need to know is that TFA happened almost like in canon, except Rey and Kylo Ren already had history before that, Finn didn't end up in a coma, and Han didn't end up dead. The result is that Finn went with Rey to find Luke Skywalker, while Han stayed behind with the Resistance. Also, Finn is Force-sensitive.

Something is terribly wrong. Luke Skywalker is supposed to shine like the sun.

Luke Skywalker is a gaping absence that chills me to the bone.

“Luke Skywalker?” Finn asks, pulling me out of my stupor. “I’m Finn, this is Rey. We’re with the Resistance. Your sister Leia send us.”

“What happened to you?” I demand, my voice coming out as horrified as I feel.

Luke Skywalker raises a brow. The lack of emotions is made all the more disturbing by him being an impossible void. Then he moves forward, walking passed Finn and me without a single word. Finn startles. I see him give me an uncertain look from the corner of my vision, disturbed and wary by the horrible absence he’s unconsciously picking up on as well.

I continue staring at Luke Skywalker’s retreating back as I struggle with the dissonance of what my eyes are telling me is there and what I’m sensing.

“Rey, we need to go after him,” Finn says and he’s right, of course he’s right. We need to go after Luke Skywalker.

“Something’s wrong,” I say instead, still watching the void that shouldn’t be. Watching the way it disturbs the Force, how it derails the currents whenever they smash against that chilling absence, causing a tangled mess around it. Around him.

Luke Skywalker is unsettling the Force simply by being.

Or rather, by not being.

“Well yeah, that’s why we need to go after him.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I say without looking away from the void that is Luke Skywalker. “Something is _wrong_.”

The void that is Luke Skywalker disappears behind a rock formation, and just like that, I can no longer sense him. I can still feel the effects of his lack of being, the discord rippling through the Force, but that horrible void is gone.

“I’m guessing you aren’t referring to his impression of a mute?”

“Finn, I can’t sense him.”

That shouldn’t be possible. The Force is everywhere, in the earth, the sea, the sky, in machinery and energy. It’s in the vacuum of space. Luke Skywalker’s absence, his complete and utter lack of being _shouldn’t be possible_.

“...He could be hiding?”

I give Finn a look that tells him exactly what I think of his attempt to come up with a comforting explanation. He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. He didn’t believe his own words either.

“Didn’t think so.”

I return my gaze down to the path. The void that is Luke Skywalker is back in view, descending down the stone steps. Once again, my eyes are telling me there’s a person there.

The Force is telling me there’s nothing there.

“I’m not imagining things, am I?”

I don’t need to ask what Finn is referring to.

“No, you’re not.”

No matter how much I wish he was. Wish that we both were.

“What’s wrong with him? He’s...” Finn trails off, unable to put into words why Luke Skywalker feels disturbing to him.

“He’s cut off from the Force,” I say, my heart clenching painfully as I give voice to the truth.

Things aren’t supposed to be like this.

So why does it feel like everything is how it’s supposed to be?

No, that isn’t true. Not quite. It feels like everything is how it’s supposed to be, but it also feels like the Force doesn’t want things to be this way.

So why are they?

“Guess we’re going to be here longer than we thought.”

A startled chuckle escapes me and I turn my gaze towards Finn. He’s wearing a faint smile, pleased with my reaction. I can’t help but smile back.

“Guess so.”

If _Luke Skywalker_ is cut off from the Force, the situation is a lot more complicated than I thought it was. And here I thought getting him to come back with us was going to be easy.

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have. The Force never urges me to do something if it’s going to be easy.

“Better get started then,” Finn says, full of determination and an optimism that soothes some of my tension. I give him a grateful smile, glad he’s here with me. Then I take a fortifying breath.

“Let’s go, Finn.”

We start walking down the path. Luke Skywalker has a big enough headstart that we don’t catch more of the occasional glimpse of him, but I discover that I while can’t sense the void he is without seeing him, I can sense the tangled mess around him if I focus.

The tangled mess comes to a halt in the village. Which is conspicuously empty. All the people from before are gone now.

The only one present is Luke Skywalker. He’s inside the only hut with a closed door.

I march to the hut and firmly knock on the metal door.

“Luke Skywalker, open up.”

I can’t believe I just said that. I can’t believe I’m talking to _Luke Skywalker_.

I can’t believe Luke Skywalker is cut off from the Force.

When there’s no answer, I knock again. And again. And again, and again, and again, until I’m banging the door with my fist.

“Go away.”

 _Luke Skywalker_ just talked to me.

Luke Skywalker just told me to go away.

That’s not going to happen.

“If you don’t open this door on the count of three, I’m going to open it myself,” I warn, unable to believe what’s happening. This is ridiculous, we’re talking about _Luke Skywalker_. He isn’t supposed to act like a sullen child. “One.”

The door remains closed. I don’t hear any movement either.

“Two.”

Still no movement. When I focus, I sense the tangled mess of Force in the same place as before.

“Three.”

Well. He can’t say I didn’t warn him.

I mentally rip the door of its hinges and drop it on the ground. Finn is very impressed by my display, but I’m more focused on marching inside the hut.

The void that is Luke Skywalker is looking at me with a frown, and I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. Which is ridiculous, I’ve spend most of my like reading people without the Force. Even in this life, it’s only been a few years since I didn’t need to focus in order to read people’s emotions.

I’m guessing it’s his lack of being that’s throwing me off so badly.

“Who are you?”

I lift my chin, ignoring the part of me that wants to swoon at having _Luke Skywalker_ talk to me.

“I’m Rey and I’m bringing you home.”

I might’ve had trouble reading his previous expression, but this one is clear as day.

Luke Skywalker is looking at me with _derision_. I’m having genuine trouble comprehending this. I didn’t know Luke Skywalker could even feel derision for something.

Someone. He’s feeling derision for me.

I ignore the part of me that wants to cry.

“I’m not going back,” Luke Skywalker says in a hard voice.

“Yes you are,” I counter, infusing it with the Force to show him just how determined I am.

“We need your help,” Finn adds, equally determined. Unlike me, he’s also calm. Mostly calm.

Luke Skywalker lets out a mocking scoff. Once again, I’m having genuine trouble comprehending this.

“You don’t need my help.”

My brain gets broken a little more. Luke Skywalker sounds _bitter_.

What happened to him?

“We do,” Finn says as earnestly as he feels. “The First Order destroyed the Republic fleet. They’ll control all the major systems within weeks. We need your help.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Luke says in what I can only call a scathing voice. “Walk out with a laser sword and face down the entire First Order?”

Finn’s feelings reveals that he expected exactly that, but I’m far more focused on the nightmare happening in front of me.

“What happened to you?” He’s Luke Skywalker, he’s supposed to be optimistic and hopeful and always willing to do the right thing. He isn’t supposed to be like this.

Luke Skywalker’s eyes tighten and he presses his lips together.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Han Solo and Leia Organa need you,” I push, needing him to say something, needing him to erase the awful nightmare I’m in. “Are you going to abandon them?”

Of course he won’t abandon them, he’s Luke Skywalker. The whole point of The Empire Strikes Back is that Luke Skywalker never abandons his friends.

So isn’t he saying anything?

The silence stretches for an agonizing amount of time. Part of me is aware of Finn’s growing tension.

Most of me can only stare at Luke Skywalker as he keeps refusing to say anything. My throat tightens as I realize just what his silence means.

“You are.” He’s actually refusing to go back. He’s refusing to help Han Solo and Leia Organa. “You’re abandoning them.”

Luke Skywalker flinches and turns away from me. He still doesn’t say anything.

“You can’t abandon them,” I try to deny, try to escape the nightmare I’m in. “You’re _Luke Skywalker_.”

Luke Skywalker’s shoulders tense up further and I so desperately wish I knew what he was feeling.

How can Luke Skywalker abandon Han Solo and Leia Organa?

“...I abandoned them a long time ago.”

My breath hitches at the words that can’t be true except they are. The Force is telling me they’re true.

No matter how much I wish they weren’t.

“I can’t help you.”

Part of me registers how tired he sounds, how broken.

Most of me can only stare at him with denial.

“Go away.”

I look at what is supposed to be Luke Skywalker, look at the absence where brightness should be, the refusal to help where there should be a need to make things better. Then I turn around and storm out of the hut. I hear Finn call out and sense him running after me but I don’t stop moving. I need to get away from the mockery of everything Luke Skywalker is supposed to be.

When Finn calls after me with increasing worry, I force myself to halt.

“Rey.” He halts besides me and grasps my shoulder. “Wait, just wait. You can’t give up.”

I let out a harsh breath, rubbing my eyes as I resist the urge to snap at him.

“I’m not giving up,” I manage to say in a relatively even voice. “But I need some distance.” Distance from the sham pretending to be Luke Skywalker, distance from the turmoil raging inside me. I need to calm down.

“I need to meditate.”

Finn looks at me with surprise, not having expected that answer.

“Oh. Yeah, okay, that’s cool. You go meditate.”

I feel a faint smile grow at his babbling. It fades as I see Luke Skywalker appear in the distance, that horrible absence standing out in the most awful of ways even with the distance between us.

Luke Skywalker starts making his way down another path than the one from before.

“How long are you going to meditate?”

I tear my eyes away from the void that is Luke Skywalker and meet Finn’s gaze.

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully, before giving it some more thought. “Probably going to last for most of the day.” Not just because of this whole thing with Luke Skywalker, but because of what happened on Starkiller Base and the events leading up to it. A day of meditation is far too little to get my mental state back in order. But it’s a good start.

Finn hesitates, lost in a way in that makes worry join the rest of the mess of my emotions. Before I can ask what’s wrong, determination rises.

“Right. You go mediate, I’ll go try to change Skywalker’s mind about coming back with us.”

Ah. Finn was feeling lost because he didn’t know what to do while I was mediating.

“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” I say with a smile, speaking nothing but the truth.

Finn made me stop running. True, he didn’t do it on purpose, but that only makes his accomplishment even more impressive. I have no doubt that he’ll be able to work his magic on Luke Skywalker as well.

I also don’t doubt that it’s going to take a lot longer than either of us expected.

My compliment makes startled pleasure rise. Finn gives me a smile that’s both pleased and bashful.

“Now I have to get him to change his mind. No pressure or anything,” he jokes, not meaning it in the slightest. Well, there’s a little pressure, but mostly Finn is determined and confident.

“Poor you,” I tease, our banter easing some of my tension.

“You know I can tell you don’t really mean that.”

“What remarkable powers of observation you have.”

Finn chuckles.

We split up. Finn leaves in the direction Luke Skywalker disappeared in, while I go to my ship to meditate.

I could go to another place. I could go to the highest peak that is a nexus for the currents covering the planet, or to the tree that is still the heart of the Island, no matter how weak it has become.

I could lose myself in the whispers beneath the Island.

I don’t do any of those things. I don’t know why I’ve been dreaming of this island for as long as I can remember, and while I desperately want to find out the reason, I don’t want to find out right now.

I want to calm down.

It comes as no surprise that Artie is hard at work repairing the busted engine. It can’t fix it completely, I don’t have the necessary parts for that. But it’ll do all it can to get my ship back in the best shape possible.

My ship, which is the real Millennium Falcon. I’m not going to get over that for a long while yet, if ever.

I’ve been flying around the galaxy for the past six years with _the real Millennium Falcon_.

“Need help, Artie?” I call out as I near. While I need to meditate, the urge to fix my ship is impossible to resist now that I’m here. I managed until now because of the speed everything was happening with, but now that’s passed, it’s turned into a maddening itch beneath my skin.

I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to damage my ship.

I can’t believe he’s Luke Skywalker’s nephew. And that’s all the thought I’m going to spare for that. I need at least a week of meditation before I even begin facing that particular fact.

[Exhaust regulators a2 and a5 are failing to disconnect completely,] Artie beeps back from where it’s standing on top of my ship, all its focus on its delicate welding of the misshapen hull.

[This unit is capable of disconnecting exhaust regulators a2 and a5,] R2-D2 beeps up from where he’s standing on the ground, his tone full of false cheekiness. His focus is laser sharp and aimed entirely at me.

[This unit will fry every one of Insane-Pile-Of-Junk’s circuits if his faulty processors dare to even contemplate putting his tools anywhere near Gorgeous-Thing.]

A startled chuckle escapes me. That amount of vitriol is extreme even for Artie.

For a moment, R2-D2 genuinely contemplates calling Artie’s bluff. As our flight over revealed, R2-D2 is a troll.

The moment doesn’t last long and his full focus soon returns to me. I grimace. I really don’t want to talk about what happened. But R2-D2 deserves to know.

“Something’s wrong with Luke Skywalker.”

Admittedly, I’m not the greatest at explaining things.

I don’t need to clarify myself. R2-D2’s focus is replaced by sorrow. Sorrow, and a complete lack of confusion.

He knew what state we were going to find Luke Skywalker in.

I can’t be mad at him for withholding that information. Not with the kind of grief he’s experiencing.

[...Query – did Bright-Dork inquire after this unit?]

Damn it. I was so caught up in the awfulness of seeing Luke Skywalker like this that I forgot to mention that R2-D2 is here.

“I forgot to tell him you’re here,” I say with an apologetic look. “I can tell you where he is right now.”

Or rather, I can tell where Finn is. I don’t even have to focus to do so, his location is clear at the back of my mind, courtesy of our bond.

I still search for that tangled mess of Force. As expected, it’s in the same location as Finn.

R2-D2 remains silent, reluctance warring with his grief. Then he lets out the equivalent of a sigh. The beeps are mostly pained, but there’s also a flicker of... relief.

[This unit will wait for Bright-Dork to decide to come to this unit.]

In other words, R2-D2 is avoiding Luke Skywalker. This shouldn’t be surprising. Not after he insisted me and Finn go after Luke Skywalker without him.

It’s still a surprise. I don’t blame him for not wanting to see Luke Skywalker, though.

Who wants to see Luke Skywalker like this?

I turn my attention to the exhaust regulators that need to be disconnected, needing a distraction from my thoughts. Artie wastes no time in ordering me around some more after I finish disconnecting them, using me to do all the things it can’t do itself.

R2-D2 mostly recovers from his mood and starts verbally needling Artie. He’s also wise enough not to cross the line into the physical, despite the great temptation to do so. Apparently he took my earlier warning that Artie _will_ make good on its threats to heart. Good.

I work on my ship for an hour or so. I’m not really keeping track. And yes, I should be meditating, but not only is the urge to fix my ship impossible to resists, it’s soothing as well. Not enough for me to get rid of the turmoil boiling inside, but enough to make me feel more in control of myself.

After I’ve done all that Artie can’t do itself, I jump on top of my ship. Artie will need my help again later on, but for now, it’s got things covered.

I sit down on top of the hyperdrive and close my eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Find peace. Find balance.

Slowly, so very slowly, I let go of my frustration and denial, my anger and despair. I release it all, until at last my mind turns clear and the Force comes into focus.

It’s everywhere, in my body, my blood, my very being. It’s in my lightsaber, my prosthetic, my clothes, in the air I breathe. It runs through my ship, through the circuits and couplings, the wires and systems. It flows through the code controlling the systems, it dances within the energy of the hyperdrive.

And beyond that, the earth rising high, the roots reaching down. The water crashing against the shores, every droplet unique yet alike at the same time. The animals making their home here, the people dancing with the ever shifting currents. The heart of the Island, weak yet still so strong, refusing to give up. The peak where the currents converge in the most breathtaking of ways, vibrant in a way impossible to put into words.

The secrets whispering down below.

The secrets are calling me. It’s not a demand, not a command. Just a call.

I don’t heed the call. I simply lose myself in the Force.

The Force loses itself in me. I am the Force and the Force is me. I am an individual and part of the whole. I’m bound by destiny. I’m free to make my own choice.

I’m balanced.

I meditate for an eternity that lasts exactly ten hours, ten minutes and ten seconds. Then I release my focus.

I’m feeling a lot better now.

After checking over my mental defenses, I stand up and lift my arms in a delicious stretch. Even with my wounds, I feel loose and limber in a way only meditation can cause.

Artie and R2-D2 are inside my ship. Artie is still hard at work, and judging from its regular bursts of annoyance and R2-D2’s mischievousness, R2-D2 is still needling it.

I jump off my ship with an extravagant flip just because I can, before making my way to Finn. He’s no longer with Luke Skywalker, I felt them split up during my meditation. While I can’t sense the void that is Luke Skywalker now, I had no such trouble while meditating.

The last place I sensed Luke Skywalker was on the opposite side of the Island. Finn, on the other hand, is on a hill near the village.

When I arrive, I halt with surprise.

Finn is surrounded by birds. And yes, I knew there were birds with him, but I don’t interpret things like normal when meditating. Dozens of birds surrounding Finn hadn’t seemed odd then.

It does now.

Recovering from my surprise, I feel an amused smile grow. All the birds are relaxing in various ways. Some are sleeping, some are playing, some are grooming each other, and various other things.

Finn, sitting in the middle, is absolutely delighted and completely enamoured.

I resume moving closer. When Finn notices me, he gives me a beaming smile. Thewo birds standing on his shoulders make the image absurdly cute. One of them is even grooming his hair. There are several birds comfortably situated in his lap as well.

“Rey!”

His happiness at seeing me makes my heart clench. This time it clenches in a good way.

“You alright now?”

I am,” I say truthfully. Meditation centers me in a way nothing else can. “And I see you’ve made some new friends,” I finish with a teasing smile.

Finn lights up, excitement and adoration flaring high.

“Yeah, I have,” he says while looking down at the birds in his lap. He gently pets one, making the bird purr with pleasure. “I _named_ them.”

It’s cute how reverent that makes him feel. Also sad when I think of why that is, but mostly it’s cute.

“This is Cuddles, for obvious reasons,” he says while continuing to pet the bird now nuzzling his stomach. “That’s Fluffy,” he says while caressing the exceptionally fluffy bird dozing on his knee. “And these are Siren and Munchies,” he says while petting the final two birds in his lap. Siren reveals how he got his name by letting out a piercing cry. Munchies isn’t hard to guess either. She’s the chubbiest bird around.

“And this is Rey,” Finn finishes with a mischievous smile while petting the bird on his shoulder that isn’t grooming his hair.

The bird is giving me a suspicious look. She’s also pressing up against the side of Finn’s head, possessive of him in a way that’s more than a little funny.

“You named a bird after me?” I ask with a raised brow, more amused than anything else. Finn tries to give me a serious look, but I don’t need to be able to feel him to know he’s faking it.

“She’s really bossy.”

I laugh. Finn is very pleased with my reaction, and he gives me a satisfied grin.

“And this is Poe,” he says while petting the bird grooming his hair.

“To what does he owe the honor of being named after Poe?” I ask while making my way through the mass of birds and sitting down next to him.

“He’s an amazing flyer.”

Bird Poe stops grooming Finn’s hair so he can puff up with pride. It’s hilarious. Also interesting. These birds are unusually clever. Probably caused by their odd connection to the Force.

“You mean I’m not?” I ask with mock hurt. Finn responds with a look of false innocence.

“It’s not like I’ve seen you fly a lot,” he says like I haven’t done some truly spectacular flying in order to escape the asshole. If the First Order doesn’t have any stories about my flying, I’ll eat every scarf I own.

“I’ll have to correct that. Need to uphold my reputation after all,” I tease, before nodding at the birds surrounding us. “So did you name any others?”

Finn lights up and starts telling me all the other names he came up with. As it turns out, he’s named every single one of the birds present.

I listen to him talk with a smile, enjoying his bright joy.

I haven’t forgotten about Luke Skywalker. Haven’t forgotten that something is terribly wrong with him. I also haven’t given up on bringing him home. I’m just choosing to ignore it for now. We’ll deal with that problem later.

It’s not like there’s any rush.

* * *

 

_They need more time. The evacuation isn’t finished yet, their people are still down there. They need more time._

_They need to stall._

_He takes a deep breath and steadies his nerves. Then he activates the comms._

_“Attention! This is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic fleet. I have an urgent communique for General Hugs.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Fourteen Years Ago**

“–tried to shoot them down, but they flew rings around them. They couldn’t take them out of course, but that’s when–”

“Girl, where are you? You get over here right this instant!”

I scramble out of my sitting position and quickly crawl to the broken moisturizer One-Eyed Bo is lounging against, staying low to the ground so as to avoid detection. I squeeze myself into a narrow opening that I only manage to fit into it by being a tiny five year old.

“If you don’t get back to work right now, I’m cutting your rations in half!” Unkar Plutt continues to yell. I’m well aware that he means it, but I still have zero intention of obeying. A day or two of too little food is a price I’m more than willing to pay. He’s been pushing me to work harder and harder this past month, to the point where I’m more unconscious at night than sleeping. I need a break.

N’Tika doesn’t resume his story, and while I can’t see him, I know he’s inconspicuously following Unkar Plutt’s rampage. So is One-Eyed Bo. Unkar Plutt has too much clout not too be wary of him when he gets into a foul mood.

N’Tika and One-Eyed Bo won’t protect me if Unkar Plutt finds me. On Jakku, it’s everyone for themselves. Me being a kid doesn’t exclude me from this rule.

They won’t protect me.

They won’t rat me out either. That’s a lot more than most are willing to do.

When I hear the fat blob’s threats grow more and more distant, I risk peaking my head out of my hiding place.

“Then what happened?” I demand, really wanting to know the rest of the story. It’s one I haven’t heard yet.

N’Tika’s sensory flaps tremble in the mozantian equivalent of a smile.

“As I said, they didn’t have enough firepower to take out the destroyers. But they could distract them. That offered General Solo the opportunity to break free. And because this is General Solo, he didn’t just break free, he decided to hijack the destroyer he was on as well.”

“Not a General anymore,” One-Eyed Bo reminds again. Both N’Tika and I ignore him. It’s Han Solo. Who cares what title he has.

“That’s when the tide turned. General Solo blew up one of the other destroyers, and that made the last one surrender. And that’s how Senator Organa and General Solo freed Kashyyyk,” N’Tika finishes with relish. He isn’t the greatest storyteller, a fairly bad one actually, but he more than makes up for it by having countless stories about Leia Organa and Han Solo. It’s a shame he doesn’t have as many about Luke Skywalker. He has a fair amount about him as well, but they’re always about Luke Skywalker doing something with either Han Solo or Leia Organa.

“What happened after that?” I ask, hoping for some more details.

“Rumor has it Senator Organa and General Solo celebrated their reunion by having sex on the newly captured destroyer.”

I let out a startled laugh, not expecting that answer. In hindsight, I should have. N’Tika knows a ridiculous amount of rumors like that.

“You’re making that up,” One-Eyed Bo says, more amused than anything else.

“I’m only repeating what I heard,” N’Tika counters.

“You’re disturbingly curious about the sex life of two humans. I thought mozantians held no interest in that?”

“Not my fault you humans are so obsessed with sex. I can’t ask for a single story without it coming up somehow.”

“Says the guy who always manages to work in a sexual rumor about Organa and Solo.”

I listen to their banter with a smile. True friendship is rare on Jakku, and those that have it are fiercely possessive of it. It’s practically impossible for someone else to join that friendship. But it’s possible to enjoy it from the outside.

I do my best to ignore the part of me that desperately wishes I had a friendship like that. I don’t have friends.

I don’t have any family either.

I can’t remember my family. Everything before I came to Jakku is a blank. But even though I can’t remember them, I know I used to have one. I know they promised me they would come back.

I know they aren’t coming back. No matter how much I wish they would.

Despite the fact that I know it’ll only cause me pain, despite the fact that I try so hard not to wonder, I can’t help but wonder anyway.

What would my life have been like if my family hadn’t left me?

* * *

 

**Twenty-Four Years Ago**

His knee is bouncing like crazy. It should be a release for the excitement running through him, but it’s only making him even more twitchy instead.

She’s almost here.

He keeps staring at the closed elevator and the light that shows it’s still on the ground floor. Come on. Move. Just move.

Is she already in the building?

He could reach out and find out of course, but if he does that, she’ll know he’s waiting on her. He wants to surprise her. Also, he kind of likes feeling like this. Like he could jump out of his skin with anticipation and excitement.

He likes feeling alive.

The elevator starts to rise! Yes!

He jumps to his feet with a fistpump, practically vibrating in place as he waits for the elevator to arrive. Almost. Almost. Almost, almost, _almost_.

Yes!

He runs forward before the doors have fully opened and jumps up without hesitation. He’ll soon be too big for this, meaning he has to enjoy it to the fullest while he still can.

Mom stumbles back as him impacting with her steals her breath, barely able to catch him without losing her balance.

“You’re home!” he cheers, hugging her tightly and feeling like he could power the entire city with his joy.

Mom chuckles and changes her hold on him so she can hug him back.

Mom is exhausted.

“And good evening to you too,” she says with a smile, her love and happiness even better than her physical hug. “How was your day, Ben?”

“I didn’t set anything on fire,” he says with his best innocent look. Given that he’s an exceptionally adorable five year old, his best is amazing indeed.

“Good boy,” Mom teases back, knowing full well that he’s just messing with her. There’s some real relief as well, though. Which, fair. His habit of taking apart power cells has led to more than a few incidents.

“How was yours?” he asks while playing with the few strands that dared to defy Mom by escaping her braids. Mom doesn’t care about her appearance in general, but her hair must always be in perfect order.

The way she styles her hair is one of the few things she has left of Alderaan.

“Tiring,” Mom says dryly, a gross understatement. She’s exhausted in a way he’s rarely felt. “Sometimes I wonder how people so stupid managed to reach a position so high.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” he points out. She’ll beat herself up over it later if he doesn’t. She has to set a good example for him after all.

Mom lets out a deep breath, a little annoyed with herself but too tired for anything more.

“You’re right, it isn’t. I’m just frustrated and taking it out on them.”

“And that’s a bad thing to do,” he finishes patronizingly. Mom gains an amused smile, and she lets go of him with one hand so she can gently flick his nose.

“Exactly.”

“You’re not too tired to play though, right?” he asks hopefully. Playing with her and Dad in the evening is the best part of the day, and with Dad off-planet, his desire to play with Mom is even greater than usual. “You can teach me more sabbac,” he adds when involuntary reluctance rises.

Mom gives him the piercing look that’s unique to her. It feels like she can see down to his very soul. Which isn’t that far from the truth, actually.

“That isn’t what you want to play.”

Well, no. He wants to play tag, or dance with her, or any other game that will burn through some of the seemingly endless energy running through him. Honestly, kids are living, breathing power cells. It often feels like it’s impossible to run out of energy, no matter that his body regularly proves the opposite.

“You’re tired,” he counters. “And I want you to teach me more sabbac,” he adds when guilt starts to rise. He isn’t lying, that would be useless. The bond between them means they can always tell when the other isn’t being truthful. While he won’t deny that he wants to play something else more, he also wants her to teach him more sabbac. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

“We’ll play something else next time,” he says when her guilt doesn’t disappear. It makes her love for him flare even higher than usual and he basks in the wonderful sensation.

Mom caresses his hair, making him close his eyes. One of the best things about being a kid is all the open affection he gets.

“You’re wonderful, Ben.”

“I really am,” he agrees while opening his eyes with a grin. He’s pure awesomeness squeezed into a tiny human form. Arrogant? Yes. True? Also yes.

“So modest, too,” Mom teases with an answering grin, leaning forward so she can rub her nose against his. He happily nuzzles her back. Then she puts him down. “Go on, get the cards and dice. I’ll join you after I’ve put on something more comfortable.”

Ah, yes. The pain of being a senator, and thus, being forced to wear outfits far too complex and impractical for Mom’s tastes.

“Okay,” he agrees, before racing into the living room. His entrance startles Threepio, and when he takes a slight detour to the cupboard so he can jump onto the couch, he earns a scandalized “Young Master!”

After bouncing on every pillow, he jumps off and bows with flourish to Threepio, before running to the cupboard the cards and dice are in. He can feel Mom’s amusement at his hyperactive behavior. Understandable. He’s often amused by his own need to burn off energy as well.

Mom doesn’t feel guilty anymore. Or rather, it’s not strong enough for him to pick up on it without the boost of physical touch. He knows that she’s still feeling a little guilty, though. She always does when she feels like she’s neglecting him because of her work. Fortunately, it’ll fade when she senses him having fun with their lesson.

It’s ridiculous how self-conscious Mom is about this. She’s an amazing Mom. Given that she’s the second mother he’s had, he can say this with complete confidence. True, she’s often busy, as is Dad, but that’s normal. Rebuilding a democratic Republic from the ground up is not what can be called casual work.

They’re still amazing parents. Both of them make sure to spend some time with him every day they’re on the planet, and once a week they bar all communications except for emergency ones so they can spend time together as a family. True, emergencies happen too often for comfort, but they don’t happen _that_ often. Given their jobs, his parents do an amazing job at balancing work and home life.

There’s also the fact that he can _feel_ them. He can feel how much they love him, feel how he’s the most important thing in their world.

He can feel how a big part of the reason they’re working so hard is because they want to make the galaxy a better place for him.

Really, it’s impossible to feel neglected with a bond like theirs. Does he wish they were home more often? Of course he does. But that just means he has to make the most of their time together.

Having Mom teach him sabbac, and more specifically, teach him how to cheat at it, is a great way to make the most of their together. They can only do it when Dad isn’t around. Dad wants to start teaching him how to cheat when he turns six. That’s when Dad himself started being taught how to cheat, and he wants to continue that tradition.

He can’t wait to see the look on Dad’s face when he reveals he already knows how to cheat at sabbac. It’s going to be a hilarious mixture of pride and betrayal. No other games, Dad really is looking forward to teaching him how to cheat. But Mom will have beat him at teaching him how to cheat at chabbac.

If he can manage to reveal it by winning a hand through cheating, Dad is going to be indignant in that hilarious way he has as well. He’s greatly looking forward to it. So is Mom. She’s far more mischievous than the movies made her out to be.

He wonders what kind of revenge Dad will take on Mom for this. Hopefully Dad will ask for his help. Both Mom and Dad are experts at pushing people’s buttons, but they go about it in different ways. Or rather, Mom is good at deliberately pushing people’s buttons, while Dad does it on instinct. Often times that instinct is unintentional.

When it comes to pranks, though, Dad always comes up with the craziest of ideas. No one ever sees his plans coming, even when they know he’s up to something. Which is why he’s really hoping that Dad will involve him in whatever revenge he’s going to take on Mom for beating him to the punch in teaching him how to cheat. It’s going to be epic.

His family is the best.


	3. Chapter 3

Soon after Finn has introduced all forty-one of his birds to me, we go to my ship to get something to eat.

Finn, being a recently defected Stormtrooper, hasn’t eaten anything the entire day. He also drank water from a freshwater spring he found. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to take anything from my ship.

I make sure he understands that no matter what’s going on, no matter if I’m mad at him, he is _always_ allowed to take food and drinks. He never needs to ask.

I won’t ever withhold nourishment from someone.

When we arrive at my ship, forty-one birds in tow, we get into a minor argument. Finn wants to take his birds aboard. I don’t. At all. Not unless he can promise me that they won’t chew on anything, scratch anything, poop on anything, or perform any other bird behavior that will damage my ship.

Finn can’t promise that. Or rather, he asks his birds, and while a significant number of them promise to be good, far too many don’t.

Even ignoring my own desire to have the birds nowhere near my ship, Artie will literally fry any that sets to much as a single paw aboard. That’s enough to make Finn back down.

We compromise. I get us some food while Finn waits with his birds, and we have a picnic outside. Artie and R2-D2 remain inside. Artie is still hard at work, and R2-D2 is still needling it. I’m pretty sure that R2-D2 is avoiding me and Finn on purpose.

He doesn’t want to hear about Luke Skywalker.

I need to go back aboard for seconds because Finn happily shares his food with his birds. Munchies definitely proves her name. Bird Rey also proves that she is indeed incredibly bossy, demanding that Finn feed her personally and chasing off any other bird that tries to do the same until she’s satisfied.

He tries to get me to share some food with his birds as well, but while I won’t ever withhold nourishment from someone, I’m not going to share my own either. Those birds were doing just fine before we showed up. They don’t need my help to keep fed. Especially not with Finn spoiling them.

Finn tells me what he did while I was meditating. He followed Luke Skywalker around and tried to make him change his mind about coming back with us.

He failed. Badly, according to him. Luke Skywalker has no intention whatsoever of leaving this island.

Luke Skywalker also spends most of his day walking around and gathering all the things he needs to survive. Like going to the shore to get fresh milk from some kind of sea cow, which Finn found to be an incredibly uncomfortable experience. Something about how you shouldn’t drink anything that comes from things that look like that. 

Naturally, I tease Finn about his reaction. In return, he dares me to go along with Luke Skywalker to see the milking for myself. Challenge accepted.

Luke Skywalker is also apparently a badass fisher. Hearing Finn describe how he caught a fish big enough to feed him for weeks is indeed very impressive. I’d think Luke Skywalker was showing off for Finn, but the fact that the harpoon he used was obviously in place long before we came here shows that isn’t true. Or rather, showing off isn’t the only reason he did it.

It started to rain on their way back to the village, and Finn decided to go take shelter and resume trying to change Luke Skywalker’s mind after the bad weather had passed. I make sure he knows he’s always allowed to take clothes from my ship as well. While I don’t have much that’ll fit him, cloaks aren’t a problem.

I’d noticed the rain of course, but again, I don’t experience things like normal when meditating. My wet clothes also hadn’t bothered me after I stopped meditating. The opposite, wet clothes feel like a luxury even after being gone from Jakku for so long. I can enjoy letting them dry in the air as well, courtesy of the fact that walking around in wet clothes won’t make me sick. I always make sure that my immune system is as boosted as possible. The benefits of interstellar medicine.

Finn found a small cave to wait out the rain, and that’s where he met bird Rey, Cuddles, Fluffy, Snowy and Digger. They were taking shelter as well. When the rain let up, Snowy and Digger left. Finn could’ve left as well, but he’d decided to spend a little more time with his newfound birds before getting back to the job.

He’s very glad that he did. Snowy and Digger soon returned with twenty-four other birds. When Finn moved outside because the cave was getting crowded, his final twelve birds joined him. And that’s the story of how he ended up with forty-one birds.

It’s a good story. It’s even better how much fun Finn had today. I’m glad he’s happy.

After our meal, we decide to to give changing Luke Skywalker’s mind another shot. Or rather, I decide to go fix his door. If he’s there, we’ll see about getting him to come back with us again. If he isn’t there, my conscience will have been soothed by fixing his door. In hindsight, I let my temper get away from me.

Luke Skywalker isn’t in the village. The people from before are. Once again, many of them are looking at me with excitement and recognition. I decide to ignore that for now. I can find out how it is that they know me later. We’re going to be here for a lot longer than expected after all.

Finn and his progression of birds draws a lot of curious glances as well and even more amusement. It’s obvious that some are talking about them, though the telepathic aspect of their language is apparently only noticeable to the person they’re talking to. Or rather, the specifics are. Whenever they talk, the Force shifts around them in ways I’ve never seen before. It’s subtle, but it’s definitely there.

It’s fascinating.

The door has been moved from where I dropped it. It’s now propped up against Luke Skywalker’s hut. I mentally lift it up and turn it around to examine the damage.

“Have I mentioned how awesome it is when you do that? Because it’s very awesome.”

I grin at Finn’s appreciation but don’t halt my examination of the door. The edges are rather deformed, but the biggest problem are the hinges. They broke clean off when I tore the door out of its frame.

“You’ll be able to do this as well,” I say, most of my attention still on the damage I did.

Finn’s shock draws my full attention.

“I will?” he asks like I just told him he’ll be able to fly without any mechanical aid. He doesn’t believe me, but he desperately wants to.

“You do remember that you’re going to be trained, right?” I tease, amused by his reaction.

Finn’s eyes are as wide as those of his birds. Bird Rey puffs up with aggression and glares at me. While I approve of her protectiveness of Finn, it’s kind of hilarious to see her act like this. Finn is just shocked. In a good way, even.

“I thought I was just going to learn how to hide?” he more asks than says, hope starting to replace his shock.

“That’s what you’re going to learn first,” I correct. “But why stop there?”

He could of course, but who’d ever want to? The Force is _magic_. Who wouldn’t want to learn all they can about it?

Finn starts to smile and it doesn’t take long for it to turn beaming. He’s giddy and disbelieving and excited in the best of ways. Definitely won’t stop at learning how to hide.

His reaction makes bird Rey calm down and she nuzzles Finn’s head. Finn absently pets her, most of his focus still on me.

“When will I be able to do this?”

“I have no idea,” I say truthfully. I learned how to do it during my very first lesson with Maz, but I’d already been practising with the Force for years before that. Unlike me, Finn still needs to learn the basics.

“Not even a rough guess?” he asks hopefully. I wish I could give him one, but I seriously have no idea. Though...

“A month or four? If you work hard.” Maz said it would only take him about that long to learn how to hide. If she teaches him how to levitate things at the same time, he should at least get the basics down by then as well.

Finn gains a huge grin.

“Yes,” he gleefully whispers to himself, the word punctuated by an excited gesture. His behavior makes some of his birds burst out into excited chirping, including Siren and Melody, who show just why they got their names. Bird Poe also shows that he is indeed an amazing flyer by doing a few complicated loops over Finn’s head. A few other birds take to the air as well.

Turning my attention back to the broken door, I start fixing it. Smoothing out the metal is easy. Fixing the hinges isn’t. Mending metal is easy with tools and _extremely_ difficult with the Force.

Unfortunately, when I ask the people for something to weld with, I discover that they don’t have anything like that. Which, seriously? I’d noticed the lack of visible technology of course, but I thought they had things to take care of the most basic needs. Nope. This island is technology free to a mind boggling degree.

I tell Finn to stay put and return to my ship with Force speed. Putting the tools I need in a bag, I return to the village as fast as I left it.

“Will I be able to do that as well?” Finn asks after I arrive with an extravagant jump, the action still inspiring a thrill even after all this time.

“Yep,” I confirm with a grin. While I did the jump for myself, I won’t deny that his admiration is nice. On occasion, I like to show off.

Putting on the protective goggles I brought along, I activate my torch and start welding. Right before I’m finished, Luke Skywalker returns.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing,” I retort without looking away from my work. In part because I don’t want to make a mistake right before I’m finished, but mostly it’s to avoid seeing that horrible absence. Feeling the discord behind me is bad enough already.

“Fixing the door _you_ broke,” Luke Skywalker says in a voice like the desert.

“Congratulations on having eyes,” I say while deactivating the torch and taking off my goggles. Swinging the door open and shut a few times, I feel satisfaction rise at the ease with which it moves. Well done, me.

Turning around, I can’t help but grimace as I’m confronted by the void that is Luke Skywalker. I’m never going to get used to this.

I don’t want to get used to this.

“Any chance you changed your mind about coming back with us?” Finn asks cheerfully, not a single part of him expecting the answer to be yes.

Luke Skywalker rolls his eyes.

“You’re wasting your time,” he says while walking to his hut. Finn’s birds immediately scatter to avoid being anywhere near his path, taking to the air as fast they can. I understand completely. While I don’t touch the void itself, the tangled mess of Force around it makes me shiver violently when Luke Skywalker passes by me. It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever felt.

Luke Skywalker shuts the door behind him.

Well. We tried.

“Want to keep trying?” Finn asks like he just read my thoughts. Clearly, he didn’t read my emotions.

“Hell no,” I answer without hesitation. I’m not giving up of course, but I have zero desire to keep facing that mockery of Luke Skywalker right now. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Finn lets out a relieved sigh. He has as little desire as me to remain in Luke Skywalker’s company.

“Great. So what should we do instead?”

An excellent question. One I have an immediate answer to. A surprising one, though I suppose it shouldn’t be.

I want to know why I’ve been dreaming of this island.

“Come on,” I say while putting my tools back in the bag and starting to walk to where I want to go. “I want to show you something.”

I want to see it for myself.

Finn and his birds follow. Finn, curious to our destination, asks me where we’re going. I, in a mischievous mood, refuse to tell him.

My mood changes as we near the place I want to see. I turn quiet, feeling like the silence shouldn’t be disturbed. Feeling like we’re walking on sacred ground.

Finn and his birds feel the same.

I turn a corner and halt.

There it is, exactly like in my dreams. The remnant of what was once the greatest of trees.

The heart of the Island.

Finn and I approach in silence. I’m absently aware of Finn’s birds halting behind us, only bird Poe and bird Rey remaining with him, seated on his shoulders.

Most of me can only stare with awe at what is so much more than a tree. Memories whisper through the air, images flickering at the edge of my mind, too fast for me to catch.

“What is this place?” Finn’s voice is hushed, a mere breath that feels almost sacrilegious in the silence that isn’t silent at all.

“The heart of the Island,” I breathe just as softly. Walking up to the tree, I lift my hand. The whispers grow louder the closer my hand gets to the bank, images still too fast for me to catch now I can hear them. The life that used to be here, the symphony that once sang so brightly.

The slow decay into the whispers of today.

I touch the heart of the Island and I _see_.

A towering tree, leaves green and vivid and every single one a bright spark, all connected to the bonfire that is the tree. Sparks fading, red and gold falling to the ground, the fire going to sleep, stark branches rise high. Death and decay feeding the roots reaching down below, fanning the flames, bringing about new life. Buds to blooms to leaves, exactly the same as before and nothing alike. An endless cycle of rebirth, each unique and different and exactly the same, the beauty of it all taking my breath away.

Then it’s gone, and I’m left touching the remnant of what was once life in its purest form.

Or maybe it isn’t a remnant. Maybe it just took on a different shape.

I can feel a single spark, struggling with all its might to survive. That struggle, that refusal to give up no matter what, makes that spark shine as brightly as the entire tree did at the height of its power. In some ways, it shines even brighter.

“They used to live here.”

Finn’s whisper draws my gaze to him. He’s touching the tree as well, eyes absent as his other hand gently strokes a frightened bird Poe, who’s pushing against his head like he’s trying to disappear into it.

“You saw that?” I ask in an equally hushed voice, wondering why his vision was different from mine. I didn’t see any birds. Just the tree.

Finn tears his eyes away from the tree.

“What? Oh. Yeah, Poe showed me,” he says a fraction less hushed than before.

“Poe showed you,” I repeat, completely caught off guard by his answer. Didn’t he get a vision from the tree?

“It’s like what you said with the villagers. They show me images sometimes.”

Telepathic birds. Sure, why not.

“Didn’t I mention that?” Finn asks with a frown, confused. He thought he had.

“No, you didn’t.” I definitely would’ve remembered if he had.

Finn shrugs, eyes drawn back to the tree. He might not have gotten a vision from it, but he’s still affected by it. A lot.

But then, he was able to feel that Takodana is special without any training. Finn is far more naturally sensitive than I am.

“Poe showed me the tree when it was still alive.”

It’s still alive now.

Isn’t it?

I’m confused by the Force insisting that the tree is no longer alive. I can feel a spark of life. That means it isn’t dead.

Right?

“They used to make their nests here,” Finn continues, drawing my attention again. “Well, not them, but their ancestors did.”

Telepathic birds who use their telepathy to pass on ancestral memories. The galaxy is truly a mysterious place.

“You didn’t get any visions from the tree itself?” I asks, watching as he lifts his hand from the tree so he can comfort bird Rey. She’s just as agitated as bird Poe. Unlike him, she’s dealing with her anxiety by becoming angry.

“Should I have?” Finn asks while turning his gaze to me, curious. My own eyes are drawn back to the tree.

“Not really.” Visions are fickle things that I usually can’t make heads or tails of. The Force deciding that I needed one while Finn didn’t fits with its ineffable nature.

This vision was surprisingly clear, though. More of a memory than anything else.

As always, I have no idea why the Force showed it to me. What it’s trying to say to me.

Maybe there isn’t a reason. Maybe it’s just what it feels like. A memory from a bygone age.

Maybe the Force just wants someone to remember.

“What did you see?”

Finn’s voice is as soft as it can go.

My own is reverent.

“I saw life.”

There really is no better way to describe it. I saw – felt life with a clarity normally reserved for meditation. And when meditating, my awareness of life is spread out.

The vision had been narrowed to the life of the tree. Just a fraction of it, a mere breath in the entirety of its lifespan.

The fleetingness made it all the more beautiful.

“That isn’t vague or anything.”

I feel a faint grin grow and tear my eyes away from the tree.

“The more you learn about the Force, the more vague you become,” I quip. It isn’t a lie, every language I know is incapable of adequately describing the Force. Admittedly, me being bad at explaining things in general, doesn’t do me any favors when it comes to explaining the Force specifically.

“I saw the seasons pass while the tree was at the height of its power,” I clarify when a flicker of annoyance and exasperation join Finn’s amusement. I finally let go of the tree.

My answer is enough to mollify him. Good. I have no idea where to even begin going into further detail.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” I say while moving to the opening in the tree, the one I’ve never explored. In my dreams something always warned me to stay out.

I’m not being warned now.

“Whoa, Rey, wait.”

Judging from Finn’s nervousness and _extreme_ reluctance, he is being warned to stay out. I halt while he quickly covers the remaining distance between us.

“You don’t have to come,” I say. I’d like him to come with me but it isn’t necessary.

“I’m not leaving you,” Finn says without hesitation. It’s ridiculous how touched that makes me feel. Abandonment issues at their finest. “But– ow.”

Finn’s outburst is fueled by surprise, not pain. Bird Rey is tugging at his hair, and while she’s doing it hard enough to be felt, she isn’t doing it hard enough to cause pain.

“Hey, stop that,” Finn says while reaching for her. Bird Rey avoids his hand by flying on top of his head, softly crying out in what is clear protest.

“I’m not leaving her,” Finn repeats with his eyes raised up like that will let him see bird Rey. He’s even more resolved than before. Once again, I’m ridiculously touched. “But do you really want to go in?” he asks me while lowering his gaze to meet my own, worry joining his resolve. “That place feels... sacred.”

Finn makes a face as confused and incredulous as he feels about his choice of words. The First Order isn’t big on religion.

He’s right, though. This place feels sacred. And I need to see it.

I need to know.

“I’ve been here before.”

I’m as surprised as Finn is by my words. I didn’t think I wanted to share this.

I was wrong.

“I’ve dreamed of this island for as long as I can remember,” I continue, feeling something unclench inside me as I give voice to the truth, even as another part of me tenses up with a chaotic mess of emotions. Anxiety. Anticipation. Fear. Longing.

Hope.

“I’ve visited every place, walked every path. But I’ve never gone inside here. I couldn’t.”

I hold Finn’s gaze and infuse my voice with the Force, needing to impress the gravity of what this means to me.

“I can now. I need to go inside, Finn. I need to know why I’ve been dreaming about this place.”

I need to know if it has anything to do with my family. I’m trying so hard not to hope, I’ve been disappointed too many times for that. Yet I can’t help it.

Maybe I’ll finally discover who my family was.

Maybe I’ll finally remember them.

“Okay,” Finn agrees. He doesn’t know that this is about my family, but he understands how much this means to me. “Let’s go inside.”

I relax much more than expected. Apparently I want him to come with me more than I thought.

Bird Poe and bird Rey burst out protesting, soft but fierce. Bird Rey hops off his head and onto his shoulder so she can protest directly into his ear.

“You can wait with the others,” Finn tells them, determined to see this through. Bird Poe an bird Rey continue to protest.

“I’m not leaving Rey.”

Am I always going to be this touched when he says that?

“Don’t worry, we won’t be inside long,” he assures, before looking to me for confirmation. “Right?”

“Depends on what we’ll find,” I say, not wanting to lie to him. My answer earns me a fierce glare from bird Rey, while bird Poe huddles against Finn in what I can only call a pitiful way. They really don’t want to go inside.

Given that I don’t feel any danger, I’m guessing this has to do with their ancestral past of this being their home.

“I’ll try not to stay inside for long,” Finn amends. Both bird Poe and bird Rey puff up until they’re nothing but balls of fluff. Bird Poe is a ball of fearful anxiety, while bird Rey is a ball of aggressive anxiety. Then bird Poe flies off Finn’s shoulder and nervously loops through the air, his eyes remaining locked onto Finn.

“You’re staying?” Finn asks bird Rey with a breathtaking smile, incredibly touched by her decision. It’s cute how attached he already is to his birds. It’s also a good thing that we’re staying here longer than expected. I don’t want to think of how he would’ve reacted to leaving his birds behind only a few days after he met them.

Bird Rey replies with an annoyed chirp and manages to puff up some more, but she doesn’t get off his shoulder. Finn pets her, making her fur lower just the slightest bit.

“Thanks, Rey.”

I feel an amused smile grow. It’s never going to stop being funny that he named a bird after me. Also flattering and touching, but mostly funny.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Ready,” Finn confirms.

We move to the opening. Right before we enter, bird Poe lets out a pained cry, immediately drawing Finn’s full attention.

Bird Poe zooms forward and smashes into Finn’s neck. He remains huddled there as an anxious ball of fluff.

“It’s alright,” Finn tries to comfort while petting him. “You don’t have to stay.”

Bird Poe replies by trying to melt into Finn some more. He isn’t leaving. Finn is as touched by his decision as he was by bird Rey’s.

I enter the tree and Finn follows. It feels even more sacred inside. The memories are louder here. Still fleeting and impossible to catch, but now there are voices at the edge of my hearing. A hint of the song that used to be here.

I move deeper into what I now realize is a sanctuary. A shrine.

The narrow path leads to a hollowed out space I can’t examine the details of. All my attention is on the a naturally formed shelf and the books it holds.

Those aren’t books. They can’t be. They _shine_ , bright and vivid and touching my every sense. They’re knowledge and wisdom, fleeting and everlasting. They’re the past and the future, the present and the possibilities that never were.

They’re the spark of life fighting so hard to survive.

Part of me is aware that I’m moving closer, that I’m reaching for them –

“Of course she can understand the texts, why am I even surprised?”

I spin around and see Finn do the same. That’s the last rational thought I have.

That is Anakin Skywalker.

I stare some more. But no, the image doesn’t change. That is the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. Head tilted back as he scowls up at the ceiling, arms crossed, wearing Jedi robes and looking exactly like he did in Revenge of the Sith except for all the ways he doesn’t. He’s the Force given form in a way I can’t quite wrap my head around. I’m literally seeing the Force. And the Force is shaped like Anakin Skywalker. A frustrated, annoyed, and exasperated Anakin Skywalker.

“You’re seeing this too, right?” Finn asks without looking at me. Part of me is aware that he’s almost as shocked as I am.

Most of me can only stare at the ghost of Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin Skywalker lowers his head to scowl at Finn, before his eyes zero in on me, wide with shock and his hands falling down his side.

“You can see me?” he asks with disbelief. I keep staring.

“Can you hear me?” he demands, shock making way for determination and hope. I keep staring at the ghost of Anakin Skywalker.

“Yeah, we can,” Finn answer. Anakin Skywalker ignores him, marching forward and snapping his fingers right in front of my face. It’s enough to pull me out of my stupor.

“Can you hear me?” he demands again, backed by the Force in ways I can’t describe. I give a jerky nod.

Anakin Skywalker whoops with joy.

“Yes! Finally! Kriffing hell, do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to contact you?”

He what?

“I swear, you’re the most Force-deaf Force-sensitive I’ve ever seen.”

“I am not,” I hear myself say, indignant at his assessment of me. Sure, I had trouble listening to the Force before Maz, but I haven’t since then.

“You are,” Anakin Skywalker counters with a grin, radiant with giddiness and delight. “It’s the damndest thing, you pick up the most difficult things with ridiculous ease, but when it comes to the simple things, you’re an utter disaster.”

I can’t believe that Anakin Skywalker is here and he’s _insulting_ me.

“Familiar, this story sounds.”

My head snaps to the side. I stare yet again.

That is Yoda, wearing the clothes he did on Dagobah and sitting on a curve in the trunk, casually leaning on his staff. Because why not break my brain a little more.

“I’m not imagining him either, right?” Finn asks while Anakin lets out a disagreeing scoff. I’m absently aware that I shake my head.

“I was never this bad,” Anakin Skywalker says to Yoda, still grinning like crazy.

“Disagree I must. This bad you were,” Yoda retorts with a peaceful smile, mischievous and fond.

“Rey, do you know them?”

Finn’s question succeeds in rebooting my brain.

“Depends on your definition of know,” I answer, drawing the attention of both Anakin Skywalker and Yoda.

“This isn’t the time to be vague,” Finn points out without taking his eyes off Anakin Skywalker. While my words inspired a flicker of amusement, he’s mostly wary. He isn’t hostile, not yet, but his hand is staying close to his blaster. Which is completely useless. It’s not like shooting Force-ghosts will harm them.

Then again, I’ve never seen a Force-ghost get shot. Maybe it would have an effect on them.

“That’s Yoda and that’s Anakin Skywalker,” I say while pointing at each.

I’m completely caught off guard by Finn’s blind terror. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been.

Finn grabs his blaster and aims it at Anakin Skywalker while stepping in front of me, fierce protectiveness joining his terror. Bird Poe and bird Rey gently tug at his hair. I can’t tell if it’s to calm him down or to warn him not to shoot Anakin Skywalker. Might be both.

Finn ignores them.

“You’re Darth Vader?”

This is why I shouldn’t have been surprised by Finn’s reaction.

“I’m not Darth Vader!” Anakin Skywalker yells with sudden rage, literally glowing with fury and his voice echoing unnaturally throughout the shrine. It makes me reach for my lightsaber on instinct and almost causes Finn to shoot. He ruthless catches himself just in time.

Anakin Skywalker deflates, brightness dimming as his rage is replaced by shame and regret and unending sorrow.

“Not anymore.”

Finn doesn’t believe him, but he keeps a tight lid on his terror. He also keeps aiming his blaster at Anakin Skywalker. Can’t blame him for that. I would’ve reacted similarly if I hadn’t seen the movies.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. Both because I want to know the answer and because I figure a change of topic is definitely in order.

“Looking after my son,” Anakin Skywalker answers like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. Which in hindsight it is. Why else would Anakin Skywalker be here?

“You said you’ve been trying to contact Rey,” Finn accuses. It’s sweet that he’s trying to protect me, but I really don’t need it. Especially not against Anakin Skywalker.

More important than that, Finn is right. Anakin Skywalker did say that. Which begs the question.

“Why?” I asks while stepping out from behind Finn. Finn instinctively tries to cover me again, but I give him a warning look. Not only do I not need his protection, but in the incredibly unlikely event that Anakin Skywalker attacks us, I’ll be the one who needs to protect him.

Finn stays put. Good.

It lets me focus fully on Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin Skywalker is looking at me in a way that reminds me that while he looks to be in his early twenties, he isn’t. He’s a living embodiment of the Force.

He’s other, in a way I can’t comprehend. Not truly.

“You’re like Ben.”

“I’m not like him.” The denial escapes me without thought, harsh and fierce and I can’t believe that _Anakin Skywalker_ accused me of being like him. I’m not.

I refuse to be like him.

Anakin Skywalker grimaces and rubs the back of his neck, annoyed with himself. He no longer looks quite so other.

“Should’ve worded that better.”

“Your strong suit, tact has never been.”

“Thanks for the support, Master,” Anakin Skywalker retorts dryly but I’m far more focused on the realization hitting me.

“You know,” I whisper, the words almost getting stuck in my throat. I feel Finn’s worry but I can’t look away from Anakin Skywalker because he knows. He knows that Kylo Ren and I are from the same world, knows that we both remember.

He knows this isn’t our first life.

“Being dead gives you access to all kinds of secrets,” Anakin Skywalker says with a wry smile, kind and compassionate and he _knows_.

“Why did you want to contact me?” I whisper, needing to know the answer and fearing it with all my heart.

Anakin Skywalker’s smile fades, sorrow joining his compassion.

I wish I didn’t recognize that sorrow.

“...At first it was to make you meet Ben.”

Every part of me tenses up, rejecting the very idea of ever meeting that monster by choice. No matter that part of me expected the answer, his sorrow is too familiar to Leia Organa’s for anything else, his words still feel like a slap to the face.

“I couldn’t tell him about you, the Force wouldn’t let me,” Anakin Skywalker continues, making everything so much worse. He actually tried to tell Kylo Ren about me? “I hoped to have better luck with you.”

“Why?” Why would he even think of doing that, why would he ever want me to meet that monster?

Why would he want to hurt me like that?

“Because you could’ve saved him.”

My laugh is as involuntary as it is mocking.

“Save him? He doesn’t want to be saved. The opposite, he’s having the time of his life! He _chose_ to become a monster.”

That’s the absolute worst thing about him. He _chose_ to Fall, chose to become a Sith.

He chose to be evil.

“He wasn’t always one.”

I clench my jaw at the grief and pain in those words, uncaring of the truth they’re spoken with. What does it matter that he wasn’t always a monster? He is one now.

Despite how hard I try to prevent it, I start tapping my prosthetic. Because clearly things aren’t awful enough already.

“You could’ve stopped him from becoming a Sith.”

I couldn’t stop my derisive snort even if I wanted to.

“I highly doubt that.” That sick asshole loves to torture me. It’s literally his favorite thing to do. If anything, me meeting him before he became Kylo Ren would’ve made him Fall sooner.

Anakin Skywalker gives me a sad smile.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he says like it’s supposed to be comforting. “But that’s why I tried to contact you. At first.”

“And now?” I bite out more viciously than intended. “You want me to, what, bring him back to the Light?”

My mocking has zero effect on Anakin Skywalker. He just shakes his head, sorrowful and resigned in a way that makes my heart clench painfully. I don’t want to feel sympathy for him. Not when it comes to Kylo Ren.

Not when it comes to his grandson.

Oh, I’m definitely not dealing with that right now.

“No. You could’ve saved him before he turned. Now...”

Anakin Skywalker lets out a heartbroken sigh. The pain born from love makes everything so much worse.

“He isn’t like me.”

No, he isn’t. For all his flaws, Anakin Skywalker never wanted to be evil. He became one of the worst monsters in the galaxy in the name of love, but he never enjoyed it. He wasn’t happy.

Kylo Ren is happy.

Anakin Skywalker’s grandson is happy being a Sith. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful that must be for him. And that’s the last thought I’m going to spare on their relation until I’ve spend a week meditating at the absolute least.

“I wanted to warn you,” Anakin Skywalker continues. The knowledge that he knew just how obsessed that monster was going to become with me, that he knew how he was going to hurt me, makes my throat tighten with a mess of emotions. I can’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling, but none of it is pleasant.

“I wanted to train you, to prepare you.”

And he actually manages to make everything even worse. His words make it feel like our meeting was inevitable.

It wasn’t. The Force tells me it wasn’t. But it was close.

It would’ve taken a miracle for me not to meet him.

“After you met him, I wanted to train you even more. You needed help.”

“I still do.” The confession escape me without thought, but now that I’ve started, it’s impossible to stop. “I don’t know how to kill him without Falling.”

I came so close to Falling on Starkiller Base. So close to destroying myself, to letting my hatred consume me until there’s nothing else left.

I came so close to hurting him like he’s hurt me.

I _want_ to hurt him like he’s hurt me.

“I want to hurt him so badly.”

And that terrifies me as nothing else does. Not even him.

It would be so easy to give in. To hunt him down and fight him until he’s at my mercy again, to have him powerless and unable to stop me from doing whatever I want. Except this time I wouldn’t walk away. I would hurt him, I would inflict on him every torture he’s put me through, I would tear him apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left.

And at the end of it, I wouldn’t feel satisfied. During, yes, oh yes how I would feel satisfied, how I would feel exhilarated in a way I never have before. But not after. After, I’d feel hollow and lost. I’d feel a bottomless hunger to experience the ecstasy of hurting him again.

Except I wouldn’t be able to. He’d be dead, and I’d be left with an emptiness I’d never be able to fill.

I’m _terrified_ of what I’d do to fill that emptiness.

“I wish I could help you.”

Anakin Skywalker’s voice is a mere whisper, full of a compassion and understanding. It makes my fear so much worse. He knows that I’m not being irrational. Knows just how easy it would be for me to become a monster as awful as Kylo Ren.

“But I can’t. Not with that.”

And he regrets that so much. It’s not that he doesn’t want to teach me, he does, he so desperately does. But he can’t.

He doesn’t know how to keep me from Falling either.

“You need to find your center on your own. No one can do that for you.”

I close my eyes, anger rising above the rest of my emotions. What stunning words of wisdom.

I wish they weren’t true. Wish that he could help me.

He can’t. I’ll either find a way to remain in control during our fights, or I’ll be consumed by anger and hatred until I’m nothing but a shell of my former self.

“I have faith in you,” Anakin Skywalker says, making me open my eyes. He’s giving me a faint but warm smile, affectionate in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes me feel open and vulnerable.

It makes me feel like he knows me.

“You remind me of Luke.”

Before today, that would’ve been the highest compliment possible. Now, I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted. I’m leaning towards the latter.

Before I can say anything in return, Anakin Skywalker disappears.

“Who are you?”

And Luke Skywalker is here. Wonderful.

I ignore him and look at where Yoda was sitting. He’s gone as well. I’m not surprised by this.

“Well,” I say to Finn, whose wariness disappeared as soon as Anakin Skywalker and Yoda disappeared. He is, however, still worried about me. A lot. “That was...” I trail off, not knowing how to finish.

“Interesting?” Finn provides, trying to get me to smile.

It works.

“That’s one way to put it,” I say with a faint smile. Some of Finn’s worry disappears.

“Who are you?” the void that is Luke Skywalker repeats while moving deeper into the sanctuary, looking at me with a frown. His lack of presence is even more awful than usual. It feels, and there really is no other way to put this, like he’s defiling something sacred just by being here.

“Pretty sure we’ve already told you who we are. Multiple times,” Finn actually snaps. He’s just as surprised by his own hostility as I am. I’m betting it’s caused by the sheer wrongness of Luke Skywalker’s absence in this place.

Luke Skywalker ignores Finn. Seriously, who do people keep doing that? It’s not just rude, it’s insulting.

I can’t help but take a step back when Luke Skywalker gets too close. It feels like there are nails raking across my brain, that’s how awful his lack of presence is here.

Luke Skywalker stops coming closer. Good.

“Who are you, Rey?”

So he wasn’t _completely_ ignoring Finn. How nice.

“Someone who doesn’t want to be near you,” I snap while circling around him and moving to the exit. Even ignoring the nails raking across my brain, I need to get away from him. After everything that just happened, I can’t deal with having my childhood hero shatter my image of him some more. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming back with us?” I ask halfheartedly, neither expecting nor wishing the answer to be yes.

“Because obviously I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy for no reason,” Luke Skywalker counters in a voice like the desert, still frowning as he continues to look at me. I really wish he’d stop doing that.

“Leaving a map behind kind of ruins the definition of unfindable,” Finn points out while circling around Luke Skywalker as well, putting his plaster away.

Luke Skywalker’s frown grows deeper and he turns his gaze towards Finn.

“Map? I didn’t leave–”

His frown smoothes out.

“Artoo.”

Huh. That explains a few things. It also reminds me.

“R2-D2 is here.”

Luke Skywalker’s gaze snaps towards me. Good to see his isn’t completely numb to his friends. Just mostly.

“He’s on my ship. He wants to see you, but he’s waiting for you to come to him.”

Even with him being a horrible void, Luke Skywalker manages to convey a wealth of emotions. I just can’t tell what those emotions are.

“He misses you.”

Manipulative, maybe, but I can’t just stand by and do nothing. Not after seeing how hurt R2-D2 is by Luke Skywalker’s absence.

This time I have no trouble interpreting Luke Skywalker’s expression. He looks pained. I’d almost call it heartbroken.

It makes my anger fade. This is Luke Skywalker and he isn’t supposed to be like this. He’s supposed to be perfect. But that’s the child in me talking. The girl who clung to the heroes of the movies in order to keep her sanity intact while struggling to survive on Jakku.

I have no right to make judgements about Luke Skywalker. No right to make judgements about how broken he is.

Not when I’m so close to breaking myself.

I hate it when I get in a self-pity mood like this.

Turning around, I leave both the sanctuary and Luke Skywalker. Finn follows.

Luke Skywalker doesn’t.

Bird Poe and bird Rey relax as soon as we’re out of the tree. Bird Poe takes to the air with soft but happy chirps, looping over Finn’s head as we make our way to the rest of his birds. Bird Rey flies up and lands on Finn’s head, before stomping down in a clear reprimand.

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Finn tells bird Rey. He actually means it, too.

Bird Poe lets out a squawk that makes clear just what he thinks of that statement. Bird Rey gives Finn’s head another reprimanding stomp, careful to keep her claws from hurting him.

“They’re right, it was that bad,” I say. Bird Poe lets out a smug chirp. Bird Rey glares at me, not pleased with me taking her side. I have no idea what her problem with me is, but it’s more than a little funny.

In my current state, every bit of humor is welcome.

Finn grins. He’s still worried about me, but it’s a lot less strong than before.

“So what–”

Whatever Finn was going to say next is cut off as we cross some invisible line and he’s bombarded by his birds. There’s a brief flash of pain as the birds impacting with his chest make his burns flare up, as well as light pain from the pressure on his injured hand, but Finn is far more focused on keeping himself from falling over as he’s covered in birds from literal head to toe.

I stare at the mountain of birds, all chirping and nuzzling and being a generall mass of happiness and relief. There’s not a single part of Finn visible.

I burst out laughing, impossible to contain even if I wanted to. Finn tries to say something, but the bird covering his mouth prevents that. It makes me laugh even harder, the picture more hilarious than I can describe. This is just perfect.

It’s exactly what I needed.

I’m so glad that Finn is here with me.

I don’t know what I would’ve done without him.

* * *

 

_“You’re demoted.”_

_“What?” Demoted? What for? “Wait,” he says when Leia tries to move past him, grabbing her arm to prevent her from leaving. The warning glare she gives his hand is enough to make him snatch it back as fast he can, but he’s far more focused on him being demoted of all things._

_“We took down a dreadnought.” And she’s demoting him for it? Did she hit her head during the evacuation?_

_“At what cost?” she snaps, her temper all Leia, her demand all General._

_Poe ignores the way he feels like a kid called in front of the principal. He did the right thing._

_“You start an attack, you follow it through–”_

_“Poe, get your head out of your cockpit,” she interrupts before he can finish explaining and he knows that her temper is always at an all time high after losing even one of their people, never mind as many as they lost now, and he knows he isn’t in the best state of mind either, knows that he’s taking everything too personally._

_It doesn’t stop her next words from hitting him like a blaster to the gut._

_“There are things that you cannot solve by jumping into an X-wing and blowing something up!” she says like that’s all he is, like he’s some trigger happy flyboy with no idea of what he’s doing. Like he didn’t prove himself long before he joined the Resistance, like he hasn’t proven himself over and over again since joining!_

_He barely resists the urge to lash out at her, struggling to keep his temper under control._

_“Leia.”_

_Han’s voice is soft and understanding and a thousand other things, none of them reproachful._

_It drains all the fight from the General. Under other circumstances, Poe would be impressed._

_“I did the right thing,” he says in what is an even voice with the greatest of efforts. He needs her to see that, to admit it. “The fleet is gone. If we want to have even the slightest chance of regrouping and launching a counteroffensive on the First Order, we need to get rid of their dreadnoughts, and especially their Mandator IV-class Dreadnoughts, before they can pick off our remaining forces. Those things shoot through deflector shields like they aren’t even there.”_

_Hell, they can even break through some planetary shields. Their only saving grace is that the First Order only has a handful of them._

_Every single one of them has the potential to destroy any chance they have at recovering from the loss of the fleet._

_“Is that why you did it?” the General demands, no longer angry. Instead she’s full of the ruthless determination that made the Resistance into the formidable organization it is, despite their small size. In some ways, this is even worse than her anger._

_It makes him avert his eyes, avoiding the gaze that seems to pierce into his very soul._

_No, that isn’t why he did it. He did it because he wanted to hurt the First Order, to make them pay for what they did. To the Republic, to the billions of people in the Hosnian system. To his friends in the fleet._

_He didn’t start the plan out of a need for revenge. But revenge is why he finished it._

_It doesn’t change the fact that he was right to do so._

_“Does it matter?” he asks, forcing himself to meet the eyes that make him feel stripped down to the bone. Only the General can make him feel like this._

_“Yes, Poe, it matters,” Leia says in a way he would call pleading if it came from anyone but her._

_Disappointed in a way that makes involuntary shame rise._

_“Leaders can’t afford to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. I need you to learn that.”_

_His shame grows. He knows that she wants him to take over after her, it’s not like it’s a secret. Most of the time he feels confident that he’ll be able to meet her expectations._

_Right now he doesn’t._

_“General...”_

_He doesn’t know how to finish. Doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say._

_He did the right thing. Yes, it wasn’t for the right reasons, but it was still the right thing to do. He would’ve done the same even if he hadn’t wanted to make the First Order pay. And yes, that’s a mistake leaders of the General’s caliber can’t afford to make, but he isn’t like her. Not yet. He isn’t ready to take over yet and they both know it. He makes mistakes and he learns from them._

_But to demote him? What lesson is there in that? What good will it do for the Resistance? He’s her best Commander and she knows it. She’s crippling them at a time they can least afford it._

_She’s making a mistake herself. One she can’t afford to make. Not at a time like this._

_Not when she’s their leader._

_Before he can share his realization, the proximity alarm goes off. It makes his mind jump to high alert and he’s already running to the monitors before he’s made the conscious decision to do so._

_“Proximity alert!” Grand Admiral Ackbar yells but Poe is far more focused on the readings that can’t be true._

_“They found us,” Michaela says and the part of Poe not occupied by staring at the impossible readings recognizes the panic in her voice._

_He’s panicking as well._

_Six Resurgent-class Destroyers, three of which they just escaped._

_Except they didn’t escape. The First Order found them._

_“That’s impossible.”_

_He’s barely of the words escaping him, still struggling to comprehend what the sensors are saying is there. Then everything becomes so much worse._

_A Mega-class Dreadnought appears. They know of only one Mega-class Dreadnought in the First Order._

_“That’s Snoke’s ship.”_

_Snoke is here. They’re in the middle of nowhere and Snoke is here._

_“You’ve got to be kidding me.”_

_His fear snaps into the focus of battle, adrenaline pumping and his mind focused on only one thing. They need to get out of here right now._

_Every one of them will die if they don’t._


	4. Chapter 4

**Twelve Years Ago**

Careful. Focus on your breathing. Don’t force it, your body knows what to do. Just listen to it and...

I slowly lift my hand off the ground and let my body change position so I remain balanced. Don’t think about it, just move with the flow. Let the Force guide you.

My body stops moving and I resist the urge to grin like mad. Keep breathing, slow and steady.

I’m doing it. I’m really doing it! I’m balancing on one hand, I – lose my balance and fall down the sand with a yelp.

Damn it! Messed up again! Even worse, I messed up in the exact same way as before!

With a groan, I heave myself upright. I want to rub my eyes, but that would result in me getting sand stuck in them. I’m not going to make my mood even worse.

Sighing, I close my eyes and tilt my head back, letting the sun scorch my skin. I need to stop getting excited every time I pull off a trick like this. Or rather, I need to stop letting my excitement take over. The secret to success is letting the Force guide me. When I get excited, I drown out the Force.

At least, that’s what I figure is happening. It seems like the most logical explanation.

Taking a deep breath, I get ready to try again. I don’t have much time left before I need to return to Unkar Plutt.

It’s become much easier to train since he started sending me out to scavenge on my own. For the first time since I can remember, I actually have some free time. Not much, I do have a minimum amount of valuables I need to find if I want to eat. But I usually find enough to earn my pay some time before I need to return.

Like now.

Getting into another handstand, I focus on my breathing. I need to get this right. If I can get balancing on one hand down, maybe I’ll finally figure out how to levitate things as well. That’s how Luke Skywalker learned how to do it after all. Though unlike me, he had Yoda to teach him.

What I wouldn’t give to have a teacher.

* * *

 

**Twenty-two Years Ago**

“Uncle Luke!”

He runs forward and jumps up. He’s gotten too big to do this with Mom, and even Dad is starting to have trouble.

Uncle Luke never has trouble.

Uncle Luke laughs and swings him around, supporting his weight with the Force. He loves how it feels like he’s being held up by liquid sunshine. The Force is awesome.

“Hello, Ben. Did you miss me?” Uncle Luke asks.

“You mean you were gone?” he says with a masterful pretense at innocence. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Liar,” Uncle Luke says with a grin, amused by his antics as always. He replies with a dramatic gasp.

“Mom, Uncle Luke is calling me a liar!”

“How dare he,” Mom says from behind him, voice dry as dust and presence happy and content in a way he loves feeling. He turns his head around to give him his best betrayed look. Mom replies with a look of perfect serenity. He gets his acting skills from her.

Uncle Luke puts him down and walks towards Mom.

“Leia,” he says with a warmth only Mom can inspire, grasping her hands.

“Luke,” Mom says with the smile she only ever wears for Uncle Luke. They hug but he’s more focused on the dazzling display of their power. Mom and Uncle Luke always feel like living stars, but when they touch, it’s like they turn into an entire nebula. Impossibly big and bright and absolutely mesmerizing.

“It’s good to see you,” Uncle Luke says, giving the side of her head an affectionate kiss. The Force is heavy with love in a way it only is when they’re together. Mom loves him and Dad just as much of course, but her bond with them pales compared to the one she shares with Uncle Luke. They truly are two halves of a whole. Even when they aren’t touching, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins when they’re in the same room.

“You should come by more often,” Mom says like she always does, cupping Uncle Luke’s cheek. There’s no reproach in it, she understands why he’s away most of the time. But she still misses him. A lot.

“I’ll do my best,” Uncle Luke promises like usual, sincere as ever. He really does try to come by more often. It’s just that Uncle Luke is even busier than Mom, something that boggles the mind. Luke Skywalker, proving the impossible yet again.

And suddenly the world tilts sideways as he looks at the hero from his first childhood. He doesn’t have this problem with Mom and Dad anymore, they’re Mom and Dad first, Princess Leia and Han Solo a very distant second. But he still experiences it with Uncle Luke.

Luke Skywalker is his _uncle_. Luke Skywalker gives him souvenirs he found on his travels, he plays with him, he tells him stories, he _trains him in the Force_. It’s a dream he keeps expecting to wake up from.

“Hey, kid,” Dad greets Luke Skywalker like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like he isn’t talking to _Luke Skywalker_.

Luke Skywalker grins, mischievousness rising. He lets go of Mom and pulls Dad into a tight hug.

Just like that, the moment is gone. Luke Skywalker has turned back into Uncle Luke.

Uncle Luke loves teasing Dad. And Mom. And people in general. There’s a reason he and Uncle Luke get along so well.

Dad awkwardly pats Uncle Luke’s back. When it comes to physical affection, Dad has two modes. Easy and heartfelt touches that leave no doubt as to how much he loves you, and extreme awkwardness because he has no clue what to do with himself. Right now he’s in the latter mode.

“Alright, enough with the mushy stuff,” Dad says in a bad attempt at grumbling. Dad can be as great an actor as Mom, but like everything else with him, it’s a hit or miss. This was a miss.

“There’s never enough mushy stuff,” Uncle Luke declares sagely, his presence dancing with mirth as he pulls Dad in an even tighter hug. He’s perfectly aware of the mode Dad is in, and he’s more than happy to take advantage of it.

Dad allows Uncle Luke’s antics with a show of exasperated resignation. This time his acting is spot on.

When Uncle Luke lets go of Dad, he wastes no time in running forward and jumping onto Uncle Luke’s back. Uncle Luke catches him both mentally and physically without any effort whatsoever.

“Ben,” Mom warns like he actually needs it.

“It’s Uncle Luke,” he counters like it should be obvious. Which it is. He never does this unless he’s sure whoever he’s jumping on will catch him without trouble. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

“It’s fine, Leia,” Uncle Luke agrees with him, wise as ever. Mom replies with a look that tells Uncle Luke exactly what she thinks of him encroaching on what she considers to be parents only territory. In some ways, Mom is incredibly possessive.

Uncle Luke gives her a peaceful smile, deliberately egging Mom on. He lays his chin on Uncle Luke’s shoulder and gives her a cheeky grin, joining Uncle Luke in showing her just how funny he finds her reaction to be.

Mom is not impressed with either of them.

“Don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Dad says, cutting off their teasing. He always comes to Mom’s rescue. When he isn’t teasing her himself, that is. “Let’s eat.”

“I’m in as long as Leia didn’t cook,” Uncle Luke quips, making him snicker. It’s true, Mom is an awful cook. Dad isn’t. The opposite, he’s a great one. When he isn’t experimenting, at least. Not that either matters this time.

“We ordered in,” he tells Uncle Luke. Uncle Luke replies with a false sigh of relief.

Mom rolls her eyes. She’s still a little annoyed, but mostly she’s amused again. She’s well aware of how awful she is at cooking. Unlike her parenting skills, she has no trouble with people poking fun at this.

“I shouldn’t have ordered your favorite,” she tells Uncle Luke. Uncle Luke lights up, the sunshine of his presence becoming even more intense than usual.

“You got ramourri stew?” Uncle Luke asks with delight.

“She did,” he confirms. Uncle Luke turns his head so he can give him a beaming smile.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

The only warning he has is Uncle Luke tightening his hold on him, and then he’s running forward with Force-speed, his surroundings blurring. A startled sound escapes him, before he laughs with delight. Uncle Luke gives the best rides ever.

Uncle Luke won’t stay with them for long. A few days, a week at most, and then he’ll be gone again. Searching for any remains of the Jedi Order, their knowledge and training methods, their culture and beliefs. As the movies showed, Uncle Luke wants to rebuild the Jedi Order.

What the movies didn’t show is how utterly unprepared he is to do that. As Uncle Luke puts it, how can he rebuild the Jedi Order when he doesn’t understand who the Jedi truly were?

Personally, he thinks that Uncle Luke is overthinking things. The Jedi were the good guys who used the Force to help people. Sure, the prequels revealed that they weren’t perfect, but that’s still the essence of who the Jedi were. Uncle Luke should just find Force-sensitives, train them, and then send them out to do good deeds. Which he will tell him, as he always does when Uncle Luke visits.

Uncle Luke, of course, will start a discussion on how it isn’t that simple, because how can he train people when he’s barely scratched the surface of the Force himself, never mind teach them what qualifies as right or wrong, and for that matter, what qualifies as a good deed anyway? Blah, blah, blah.

The moral discussions aren’t his favorite thing about Uncle Luke’s visits. The stories of Uncle Luke’s travels, on the other hand, he does love to hear. He also loves the souvenirs Uncle Luke always brings.

But without a doubt, his absolute favorite thing about these visits is when Uncle Luke _trains him in the Force_. He teaches him how to use magic! Literally nothing can top that.

He can’t wait to show off how much better he’s gotten since his last visit.


	5. Chapter 5

We go back to my ship. After a dinner outside, Finn and I get into another argument about his birds. He wants them to sleep aboard with us.

Not happening.

He might’ve, _might’ve_ been able to get them to stay if it was just me, but he has less than zero chance of convincing Artie. He gives it his best shot, though.

Eventually, Finn is forced to concede defeat. The pitiful way his birds look at him breaks his heart. It’s even enough to make me falter a little.

Artie is completely unaffected.

Finn says goodnight to each and every one of his birds, acting like he’s saying goodbye forever instead of just for one night. His birds are just as melodramatic. It takes a lot of convincing before bird Rey and bird Poe agree to let him go aboard. Honestly, they’re all overreacting.

We go aboard and prepare for bed. I help him with redressing his wounds and he does the same for me.

It’s nice to have someone care for me like this. Artie would’ve helped if I’d asked of course, but Artie isn’t the greatest at offering comfort.

Finn is.

When we’re finished, we encounter a slight hitch.

“I’m not sleeping with you?” Finn asks, forlorn in a way that tugs at my heartstrings. It’s also completely unexpected. I hadn’t thought that he’d want to sleep in the same bed as me. We had the previous night, but honestly, I can’t even remember just how we and Poe ended up in my bed. The previous evening is a blur of delirious joy.

“There are three beds,” I point out, waving a hand at the beds in question. There’s only one bedroom on my ship, meant to hold both captain and crew. My own bed is big enough for two people, or three if you don’t mind cuddling, as proven by the previous night. The other two are single beds. All three had already been here when –

Oh no.

“I just thought–”

“You’re sleeping with me,” I interrupt, no hesitation left. Finn’s bright smile would be enough to make me conclude that it’s the right decision all on its own, but that’s not why I did it.

These beds were already here when I first got my ship. I changed the sheets, but I haven’t changed the mattresses.

Kylo Ren might’ve slept on one of these beds.

“I’m burning the mattresses.” Right now.

Putting words into action, I mentally lifts the two mattresses in question and put the blankets away, before marching outside.

“Wait, Rey,” Finn yells as he runs after me, ducking beneath a mattress so he can grab my hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Kylo Ren might’ve slept on one of these.”

I agree completely with Finn’s sudden horror.

“He what?”

“This is the real Millennium Falcon.”

Never going to get over that.

“It’s Han Solo’s ship.”

Never going to stop being painful.

“Kylo Ren is Han Solo’s son.”

Oh, that’s even worse.

“Which means he probably slept here sometimes. On one of these mattresses. So I’m going to burn them.”

I’m really hoping he never slept on my own bed, but that seems like a safe conclusion. The size means that it must’ve been meant for Han Solo and Leia Organa.

Now there’s a weird thought. I’ve been sleeping on the same bed as Han Solo and Leia Organa.

Finn blinks rapidly as he processes my words, before his eyes widen with realization.

“Oh. Yeah, okay, burning them sounds good, great even. Let’s do that.”

I smile, his babbling soothing me.

“Do you have anything to burn them with?” he asks. I hold out a hand and call a torch from the nearest tool cabinet.

“I do now.”

I also mentally grab the clothes still in my bathroom. The ones ruined by the asshole during our fight at Maz’s. If I’m going to be burning things, I should get rid of everything in one go.

“That’s really useful,” Finn says, impressed by my display.

“You have no idea,” I say with a grin, my spirits brightening now that I have everything I need to light the things that Kylo Ren has ruined on fire.

We go outside and I’m glad that Finn’s birds aren’t around. I don’t want to be distracted from this.

I waste no time in setting everything ablaze. It takes a bit of Force manipulation to get the fire going, but my clothes provide good kindle. It isn’t long before there’s a roaring bonfire. Excellent.

“You often set things he’s touched on fire?”

“Always. It’s cathartic.”

I can’t get rid of the asshole, but I can get rid of anything he’s touched. Anything he’s ruined.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to light him on fire as well.

We watch the fire in silence. Finn turns somber, but I don’t ask why. I don’t want to talk when doing this. I just want to let the stand-in destruction of him soothe me.

“I want to hurt him as well, you know.”

Finn, it seems, does want to talk. Also, what does he mean by that? He wants to hurt Kylo Ren, that’s more than clear and it’s something I heartily approve of. But why say it like that?

Most importantly, why does it worry him so much?

“After what he put you through, I’d be more worried if you didn’t want to hurt him,” I return cautiously, not wanting to say the wrong thing. Finn gives me a faint smile but his worry doesn’t disappear. He clenches the hand Kylo Ren hurt into a fist.

“It’s not just him, though. I want to hurt the First Order. I want to make them pay for what they did to me.”

“Understandable.” More than understandable. After the way they treated Finn, wanting payback is the most natural thing in the galaxy.

“Does that make me like him?”

And all of a sudden I understand what this is about. It’s about the conversation I had with Anakin Skywalker.

It’s about me revealing my deepest fear.

“You aren’t like him,” I say, infused with all the sincerity I posses.

It works and Finn relaxes. Mostly relaxes.

“Wanting to hurt the ones who hurt you doesn’t make you a monster, Finn,” I continue, needing him to understand this. “It just makes you human. The problem starts when you let that desire consume you. When you let it grow until there’s nothing else left. That’s when you become a monster.”

I’m so scared that’s what’s going to happen to me.

“You aren’t a monster, Rey,” Finn says softly, seeming to read my mind. Maybe he did. “You’re the best person I know.”

He means that, but it doesn’t get rid of my fear. Finn hasn’t seen me in the midst of a breakdown. He didn’t see how close I came to Falling on Starkiller Base.

“You aren’t like him,” he says firmly, grasping my hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. I squeeze back. The words are nice to hear, but they don’t get rid of the terrifying whisper that insists it’s only a matter of time before I end up like him. No matter how hard I fight to keep that from happening.

“Thanks, Finn,” I still say, wanting him to know I appreciate the gesture.

“My pleasure.”

At least I got rid of his own worry. That’s something. Something very good in fact.

We watch the last of the mattresses to ash in silence. When it’s finished, we go back inside and get into bed. Finn moves to hug me but he immediately pulls back when I tense up. I’m glad. While Finn has somehow snuck past all of my defenses, full body contact like that isn’t my thing. Yesterday evening was an exception induced by my happiness high.

I grab his hand as a compromise. It earns me a bright smile. Then Finn falls asleep with what I can only call military efficiency.

He turns into a cuddle monster the instant he does, enveloping me in a hug. Even in sleep, he’s careful not to aggravate my wounds.

To my great surprise, I don’t mind his cuddling. In fact, it’s comforting.

It makes me feel safe.

I fall asleep with an ease I haven’t experienced in a long time.

* * *

 

Something is inside my ship.

Finn is warm. I’m in my bed. And something is inside my ship.

There’s no danger.

I snuggle deeper into Finn’s embrace, enjoying his warmth. Finn tightens his hold on me, fast asleep.

I can’t go back to sleep. Something is inside my ship. Something unpleasant.

What is it?

It’s unpleasant. Dissonant. Familiar.

The power in the cockpit is turned on.

Blind terror hits me like a sledgehammer, followed by murderous rage. Crap, Artie!

I vault out of bed and throw the door open, racing after Artie as it speeds to the cockpit as fast it can. I manage to catch up right before it reaches the cockpit and leap over it before it can murder whoever is inside.

Luke Skywalker is inside.

“Don’t shoot!” I yell while preventing Artie from passing by me. Artie turns its murderous rage towards me.

[Intruder detected!] it accuses like I’ve lost my mind.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I snap back, my own temper flaring. “No lethal force unless someone is sabotaging our ship.”

I’d prefer no lethal force at all, not unless it’s in self-defense, but there’s no way to stop Artie from murdering someone who’s trying to harm the love of its life.

“And you!” I continue while spinning around, glaring at the void that is Luke Skywalker. “What the hell are you doing, breaking into my ship?”

“This is the Falcon,” Luke Skywalker returns in a grave voice, eyes narrowed in what my sleep addled mind interprets as suspicion. Honestly though, I couldn’t care less about what he’s feeling. He broke into my ship!

“Your powers of observation are astonishing,” I say in my most sarcastic voice while blocking Artie’s way again. It still wants to murder Luke Skywalker.

[This unit is starting to consider Annoyance-Rey a threat,] Artie warns while making its taser spark. I roll my eyes at the empty threat. Mostly empty. While Artie has no problem with shooting me at non-lethal settings, I need to _really_ piss it off for it to shoot me with a lethal voltage.

“I wouldn’t need to do this if you’d dial it down,” I retort, absently keeping an eye on Finn and R2-D2 as they join us. R2-D2 has activated his defensive protocols as well, though I can’t tell what level they’re at. Finn is on high alert and ready to fight, blaster held at the ready.

“Where’s Han?” Luke Skywalker demands.

“Not here,” I pint out the obvious while blocking Artie yet again. Artie lets out a string of aggravated beeps.

[An intruder is inside Gorgeous-Thing. This unit will not allow the intruder to remain.]

[This unit will turn Bitter-Sibling into a molten pile of slag if it dares to try to harm Bright-Dork.]

Because clearly more violence is just what this situation needs.

“Artoo?” Luke Skywalker asks softly, voice a mixture of hopeful and pained.

“Rey? What’s going on?” Finn asks just as Artie starts talking as well.

[This unit will enjoy reducing Insane-Pile-Of-Junk to the scrap its faulty processors already are.]

“Enough!” I command with the Force, capturing everyone’s full focus. “Artie, _dial it down_. Unless someone is sabotaging our ship or your life is in danger, lethal danger is _not_ allowed.”

Seriously, that isn’t unreasonable _at all_. I can’t believe we keep having this argument.

“Shut up,” I warn R2-D2 when he prepares to speak. Getting Artie to back down takes priority.

Artie’s murderous rage is dampened by defiance. Tough luck, I won’t budge on this. As Artie is well aware.

Artie’s defiance is replaced by extreme reluctance. Good.

It lets out a disgusted sigh.

[Adjusting defensive protocols; Threat Level 6.]

Crisis averted. Next problem.

“R2-D2, unless Artie attacks you or Luke Skywalker first, you aren’t allowed to hurt it. I _will_ kick you out if you do. And if you cause any permanent damage, I’m going to do to you what you did to Artie.”

Extreme? Yes. I am _not_ in a good mood.

“And you,” I say while glaring at Luke Skywalker. “Mess with my ship and I’ll let Artie knock you unconscious.”

R2-D2 doesn’t like that at all. Artie does.

“Everyone got that?” I demand while turning my head so I can glare at the assholes ruining my sleep.

[...Directive accepted,] Artie reluctantly agrees.

[Adjusting defensive protocols; Threat Level 6,] R2-D2 says. Not good enough. I give him a glare that tells him exactly that.

R2-D2 flickers between amusement and annoyance.

[Directive accepted,] he amends. Good. I turn my glare to Luke Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker’s lips are twitching in what better not be a smile.

“I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

I let out a harsh sigh and rub my eyes, the adrenaline fading now that there’s no longer an immediate danger of a fight breaking out. This is ridiculous.

I look at Finn to share in the absurdity of this near disaster with the only sane person here.

“Don’t look at me, I have no idea what’s going on,” he says far too cheerfully while putting the safety of his blaster back on, alertness replaced by amusement. I feel my lips curve up in a reluctant smile.

“Luke Skywalker decided to break into my ship. Artie disagreed with that decision,” I explain.

“This is Han’s ship,” Luke Skywalker says in a serious voice, drawing my gaze. His near smile is gone. “How did you get it?”

Seriously?

“You break into my ship in the middle of the damn night just to ask me how I got it?” I demand incredulously, unable to believe what I’m hearing.

Luke Skywalker’s gaze flickers down to R2-D2. That’s why he broke in. Of course.

Letting out a tired sigh, I rub my eyes again. Screw this.

“Ask me again in the morning. I’m going back to bed.”

[Objection! Annoyance-Rey is not allowed to leave Designation; Filthy-Intruder, unsupervised.]

“You keep an eye on him,” I counter with a roll of my eyes. Honestly, Artie and its mood swings. One moment I’m nothing but a burden, the next I’m an absolute necessity. “Remember, no shooting unless you’re attacked first or they mess with my ship.”

[This unit will attack Bitter-Sibling if it makes a single move to harm Bright-Dork.]

Oh no, I’m not letting this start up again.

“You two, talk outside,” I tell both R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker.

“You’re kicking me out?” Luke Skywalker asks like it’s a real question.

“You broke into my ship in the middle of the damn night,” I point out with complete exasperation. “Kicking you out is a more than appropriate response. Now get lost before the kicking out becomes literal.”

Luke Skywalker lifts his hands in a sign of surrender while his lips twitch in another near smile.

The near smile fades when he looks at R2-D2. R2-D2 himself is switching between reluctance and a painful amount of longing.

Luke Skywalker moves towards him. I press myself against the wall as much as I can, shivering violently as that tangled mess of Force passes by me.

Artie doesn’t move aside. It keeps its taser aimed on Luke Skywalker and follows his movements with suspicion.

Luke Skywalker halts in front of R2-D2 and lays his prosthetic on R2-D2’s dome.

“Hello, old friend.”

R2-D2’s reluctance and longing is replaced by impossible joy and a shocking amount of anger.

[Bright-Dork is acting like a heap of scrap.]

I let out a startled chuckle, not having seen that outburst coming at all.

[This unit has been patient, this unit has been waiting without complaint, but if Bright-Dork doesn’t get his processors back in working order, this unit will drag him back home like the petulant newly fabricated organic he is pretending to be.]

“I’ve missed you too,” Luke Skywalker says with what is definitely a smile.

R2-D2 is not amused.

[This unit cannot believe that Bright-Dork has been moping all this time on this primitive heap of molten slag.]

“Hey, sacred island, watch the language,” Luke Skywalker says cheerfully, not seeming to mind R2-D2’s language in any way. He’s still smiling.

He looks more like how Luke Skywalker is supposed to look than any other time I’ve seen him. He sounds more like him as well.

It makes me deeply uncomfortable. Not in the least because this is clearly meant to be a private conversation.

“You can continue talking outside.”

I grimace. That came out wrong.

“You’ll have more privacy there,” I clarify when Luke Skywalker looks at me with a raised brow. R2-D2 keeps looking at Luke Skywalker, still switching between joy and anger.

The void that is Luke Skywalker gives me a look I can’t read at all, before he nods with agreement.

“What do you say, Artoo. Up for a walk?”

R2-D2 beeps his assent, photoreceptor still aimed unwaveringly at Luke Skywalker. It’s like he expects Luke Skywalker to disappear if he so much as dares to look away from him. Given their history, his reaction is more than understandable.

Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 leave. Artie follows after them, taser still extended of course.

“R2-D2 is still a guest,” I remind Artie. The odds of it locking out R2-D2 are certain without the reminder.

Artie lets out a disgusted sigh. It’ll let R2-D2 come back aboard.

Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, it’ll keep out with extreme but non-lethal prejudice. Can’t ask for anything more.

I let out another tired sigh and rub my eyes again. I want to go back to sleep so much.

“So what was that all about?” Finn asks, far too cheerful for the time of night.

“That was Luke Skywalker deciding to ruin our sleep,” I say with complete exasperation. What the hell was he even thinking? Who in their right mind thinks that the middle of the night is the perfect time to have a reunion?

Then again, Luke Skywalker clearly isn’t in his right mind.

Finn lets out an inappropriate chuckle, far too entertained by this whole mess. He walks over and slings an arm around my shoulders.

“Someone is a little grumpy,” he teases like it’s supposed to be funny.

“Someone is obscenely cheery,” I snap back with a glare, but the effect is ruined by my treacherous smile. The bare arm touching my equally bare shoulders amplifies his mirth to an infectious degree.

Maybe this whole thing was a little funny. No more than a little, though.

“Come on, grumpy pants, let’s get you back to bed,” Finn says while steering me back to my bedroom.

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. Now that the adrenaline has faded, I’m keenly aware of how much of my skin is exposed to the much too cold air. My bare foot on the frigid floor is without a doubt the worst part. Time to dive back under the covers and use Finn as my personal heater.

We crawl back into bed. Once again, Finn falls asleep with military efficiency. Also once again, he turns into a cuddle monster the instant he does. I’m not complaining.

What I am complaining about is my own inability to fall asleep myself. I’m blaming the need to keep an eye on Artie, who’s standing watch at the entrance. It’s not that I don’t trust Artie to behave, it’s never given me reason to distrust it. Well, not after the first year it was with me. I just can’t help the irrational worry that it’s going to do something to either R2-D2 or Luke Skywalker.

Which means I’m stuck lying awake instead of being blissfully asleep. At least I’m comfortable.

“Anyone ever told you that you have a temper?”

My eyes snap open. My sudden tension causes Finn to let out an unintelligible sound and snuggle even closer to me, but I’m far more focused on the sight of Anakin Skywalker, wearing a pleased grin and radiating satisfaction as he lounges in the bare cubicle across from me.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper after recovering from my surprise.

“Checking to see if you can still hear me. Good news, you can,” Anakin Skywalker says, not whispering but still keeping his voice down so as to not wake up Finn. I roll my eyes, not in the mood for jokes. Or company for that matter.

On the other hand, I won’t be able to fall asleep until R2-D2 is back aboard. And I have questions for Anakin Skywalker.

But first.

“You accusing me of having a temper is the height of irony.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Anakin Skywalker counters mischievously. “Passion can be good. Just look at Leia.”

“First I remind you of Luke Skywalker, now I remind you of Leia Organa,” I say with a raised brow, a little humor rising without my consent.

“Don’t take it personally, I compare everyone to my kids.”

I feel a reluctant smile, involuntary amused at his teasing and even more amused at his sincerity.

“And everyone falls short?” I quip.

“Of course,” Anakin Skywalker agrees without a hint of joking, radiating pride. “My kids are the definition of amazing.”

I chuckle.

“Don’t take it personally,” I repeat his own words, “but I would’ve thought you’d be watching Luke Skywalker and R2-D2.”

Why is he here instead?

“Yoda is looking after them,” Anakin Skywalker explains. Kind of explains.

“You don’t want to see them yourself?” Luke Skywalker I can understand, he’s been here for years. R2-D2, on the other hand, hasn’t been.

Anakin Skywalker shrugs, his smile belied by rising sadness.

“They wouldn’t be able to see me anyway.”

For a moment, I’m confused. R2-D2 is understandable, he isn’t Force-sensitive, but Luke Skywalker – is cut off from the Force. Right.

“That sucks,” I say awkwardly, great at offering comfort as ever. Anakin Skywalker doesn’t seem to mind, though. While his sadness doesn’t fully disappear, it’s dampened by warm affection.

It’s a little uncomfortable to feel. I don’t know him, but he knows me. He’s been watching me without my knowledge for who knows how long.

If it had been anyone but Anakin Skywalker, I would’ve been a lot more uncomfortable with that.

“It does,” Anakin Skywalker agrees with my assessment that this sucks. “But it is what it is.”

“You’re surprisingly okay with this,” I say, choosing to focus on his odd acceptance of the situation instead of the fact that he’s been spying on me for who knows how long.

“Being dead puts a lot of things in perspective,” Anakin Skywalker says, not explaining anything at all. Still, while he’s accepting of the situation, he’s also pained by it.

It makes me want to comfort him.

“At least Leia Organa can still see you.”

Wrong thing to say. Anakin Skywalker loses his smile and closes his eyes, sorrow growing and joined by so much shame and regret.

“Leia has never been able to see me. She doesn’t want to see me,” he clarifies before I can express my confusion.

I grimace. I can’t blame Leia Organa for not wanting to see him. Darth Vader tortured her. He stood by and did nothing while her planet was destroyed. That’s not something you can just get over.

Anakin Skywalker isn’t Darth Vader. But he used to be.

I can’t even begin to imagine how painful it must be for him that his daughter doesn’t want to see him because of what he did to her as a Sith. The pain I’m sensing from him now is old.

How much worse would it have been when it was fresh?

“Where’s Obi-wan Kenobi?” I ask, trying to change the subject to something more pleasant. Also, I’m curious.

“Obi-wan is one with the Force,” Anakin Skywalker doesn’t explain at all, but I’m glad that his pain is dampened by merriment. And love. So much love.

“Which means...”

“He’s even deader than I am.”

I stare. Anakin Skywalker spoke the words lightly, no grief or pain rising. I must’ve misunderstood what that means.

“Do you mean he’s... gone?” I settle on, not knowing how else to describe it. Can’t call him dead after all, that’s just stating the obvious.

“Yep,” Anakin Skywalker confirms unexpectedly, once again neither grieved nor pained. At least, it isn’t dominant. Just a faint undercurrent.

“Aren’t you upset by that?” Or rather, _why_ isn’t he upset by that.

“There’s no death, there is only the Force,” Anakin Skywalker jokes in a solemn voice, but he’s sincere as well.

“Says the guy who doesn’t shut up about being dead,” I point out because seriously, he’s mentioned that how many times now?

“It’s a life-altering event, pun completely intended.”

I let out an involuntary and too loud chuckle. Fortunately, Finn doesn’t wake up.

It’s true, dying is life-altering. I don’t think about my past life much, the girl I was back then no longer exists. But her death shapes every aspect of my new life. It forms the core of my identity, it’s what drives me even now.

It’s what makes me so determined to enjoy this life to the fullest.

“What happened to Obi-wan Kenobi?” I ask, figuring that with Anakin Skywalker’s odd acceptance of his disappearance it can’t hurt to ask. I’m curious.

Why did he disappear while Anakin Skywalker and Yoda didn’t?

“He fulfilled the reason he stayed behind,” Anakin Skywalker says like it’s supposed to explain things. Fortunately he clarifies what he means by that before I need to ask. “In order to retain your identity after you die, you need to bind it to a goal. Something you wish to see or do above all else. For me, it’s watching over my kids. For Yoda, it’s seeing the Jedi Order reborn. For Obi-wan, it was the death of Darth Vader.”

Anakin Skywalker’s smile is fond and full of love, and his faint longing becomes a little stronger. No more than a little, though.

“He faded soon after Luke saved me.”

“You don’t seem too broken up about that,” I say cautiously, confused by his peaceful acceptance. It doesn’t fit with the Anakin Skywalker from the movies.

“I’m not,” Anakin Skywalker says sincerely. “Don’t get me wrong, I miss him and I wish he was here. But I’m able to deal with it in a way I couldn’t while I was alive. Being dead is kind of like being in a constant state of meditation.”

That explains a lot.

My attention is drawn to Artie when it closes the entrance. Without letting R2-D2 aboard. Damn it, Artie.

“Artoo decided to stay with Luke.”

I narrow my eyes at Anakin Skywalker.

“Are you reading my mind?” Yes, I do that as well, but I don’t like having it done to me. At all. Besides, I only read emotions, not thoughts.

“No more than you’re reading mine,” Anakin Skywalker counters with a grin. Against my will, I feel a wry smile grow. He has me there. And it’s comforting that he’s just reading my emotions. Even if he can read me a lot better than I can read him, courtesy of knowing me from his spying.

I keep an eye on R2-D2 as it moves away from my ship. I can’t pinpoint Luke Skywalker’s location of course, but judging from the fading dissonance, he and R2-D2 are moving away together.

Artie, mulishly defiant, continues to keep watch at the entrance. It clearly expects me to confront it about its behavior.

Lucky for both of us, Anakin Skywalker’s explanation makes it so that I don’t have to. I wasn’t looking forward to leaving the warmth of my bed.

Snuggling a little deeper into Finn’s embrace, I savor the delicious cocoon of heat we’ve created.

Anakin Skywalker doesn’t say anything more, content to let the silence remain.

I wish he wasn’t. The quiet makes my thoughts take a turn I really don’t want them to.

Kylo Ren is his grandson. Kylo Ren used to be Ben Solo.

Anakin Skywalker thinks I could’ve saved Ben Solo.

“Ask.”

Anakin Skywalker’s voice somehow doesn’t startle me. It just makes me swallow my suddenly too dry throat.

I don’t want to ask.

Now that the thought has taken hold of me, I won’t be able to sleep until I do.

“Why do you think I could’ve saved him?”

My voice is even softer than before and it has nothing to do with a desire to keep Finn from waking up. I couldn’t speak any louder even if I wanted to. I’m barely able to give voice to the question as it is.

Anakin Skywalker closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall, grief and pain and tired resignation overtaking all else.

“He needed someone to ground him.”

“And you think _I_ could’ve done that?”

This time my voice is a fraction louder and full of utter incredulity. Of all the answers I expected, that wasn’t anywhere near the list. Not that I knew what answer to expect, but it definitely wasn’t this. Even before I met the asshole, I had issues the size of a planet. Comes from being forced to live on a hellhole for almost a decade.

Anakin Skywalker opens his eyes and gains a faint grin, affection dampening the worst of his pain. Once again, it’s uncomfortable how he acts like we’re old friends.

“You absolutely could have,” he says without a trace of doubt. The worst part is how the Force whispers that he’s right.

“You aren’t like him,” he says before I can argue that both he and the Force are wrong, and the words steal my voice.

I’m not like him. I know that, have always known that, but hearing Anakin Skywalker say it releases something inside of me. Something I didn’t realize needed to be released until now.

I’m so scared that I’ll end up like him. I still could, I’m terrifyingly aware of that.

Right now I’m not like him. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.

I needed to hear it from someone who knows Kylo Ren even better than I do. Someone who knows me as well. Who’s seen me at my worst and still believes that I’m not like him.

My vision turns blurry as tears rise. I let them fall, couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. I can’t remember the last time I felt this relieved.

Finn tightens his hold on me, disturbed by my emotions. He doesn’t wake up, though. I’m glad for that.

This isn’t a conversation I want to share.

When my tears dry up, I take a few deep breaths before meeting Anakin Skywalker’s gaze. The kindness he radiates soothes me even further.

“Thank you,” I say with the Force, needing to express my gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” he says softly. I take another deep breath.

“I’m guessing you didn’t mean that in the way I took it?” I ask. I’m not trying to ruin the moment, but right now I feel capable of facing this topic in a way I rarely am. Best to take advantage while it lasts.

“I did, actually,” he returns with a grin, brightening my spirits even further.

I’m not like him.

“Kind of.”

I feel a wry smile grow.

“You’re even worse than me at explaining things.” That’s really saying something.

Anakin Skywalker’s grin grows, mischievousness rising.

“Maybe just a little.”

I chuckle, but I don’t say anything more. Anakin Skywalker picks up the silent hin that he should continue.

His grin fades, underlying sorrow growing dominant.

“...Ben is like me and Leia.”

My own smile fades. I might be capable of dealing with this topic right now, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.

“We always want more.

“More what?” I ask before I can help myself. I’m not trying to interrupt him, the question escaped me without my consent.

“Everything,” Anakin Skywalker says like it’s both a confession and a curse. “More power, more influence, more respect. More love, more excitement, more fun. More, more, more. As soon as we get what we want, we already want something else. We’re always chasing the horizon.”

I wait for him to continue.

He doesn’t.

That’s why he Fell?” I demand incredulously, unable to believe what he’s implying. “Because he wanted more _fun?_ ” Okay yes, that does sound like him, exactly like him in fact, but I thought there had to be some other reason. He’s a monster now, but as much as it pains me to admit it, he wasn’t always one. The Ben Solo I know from the media was a mischievous troublemaker, but he wasn’t evil.

More importantly, the reaction from his parents to his Fall show that he was loved. And Ben Solo loved them back. In his own twisted way, Kylo Ren still loves them.

Ben Solo and his family were happy. And he threw it all away by _choosing_ to become a Sith. That’s bad enough all on its own, but to learn that it was because he wasn’t satisfied with what he had?

I would give almost anything to have my family back. Him rejecting his own because they weren’t enough is literally the absolute worst possible reason for him to Fall.

“It sounds so bad when you put it like that,” Anakin Skywalker says with a smile that’s half rueful, half pained, and full of sorrow. I give him a look that shows exactly what I think of his attempt to diminish the awfulness of the reason behind Kylo Ren’s Fall.

“It is that bad.”

It would be one thing if he’d somehow been pushed beyond the breaking point by something or if he’d been manipulated like Anakin Skywalker was, but to become a Sith because he wasn’t satisfied with the perfect life of Ben Solo?

I hadn’t thought it possible, but he’s actually managed to make me hate him even more.

Anakin Skywalker lets out a tired sigh, radiating a worn grief that cuts to the soul.

“Maybe,” he says and he actually means it. Unbelievable. “I can’t blame him, though. I probably would’ve done the same if our positions were reversed.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Anakin Skywalker never enjoyed being evil.

Kylo Ren does.

“If I didn’t have Padmé? Yes, I would have,” Anakin Skywalker says with a sincerity I just can’t wrap my head around. “Even Obi-wan wouldn’t have been enough to keep me grounded,” he continues, but I’m stuck on something far more horrifying.

Is he actually comparing me to Padmé Amidala? As in, his _wife?_

The thought of being romantically involved with Kylo Ren makes genuine nausea rise.

“Then again,” Anakin Skywalker says before I can snap at him for putting that horrifying notion in my head, “he’s my grandson. I’m not exactly unbiased when it comes to him.”

Hearing his relationship to Kylo Ren spelled out like that makes everything so much worse.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” I really am. Kylo Ren is Anakin Skywalker’s grandson, and Anakin Skywalker is comparing my influence on him to that of _his wife_. I shiver violently.

Finn nuzzles the back of my neck and I gladly take comfort in his presence, the peacefulness of his sleeping mind and the warmth of his skin.

“You’ve only known him after he turned. You didn’t know him when he was still Ben,” Anakin Skywalker says like it’s supposed to be comforting, before he lets out another tired sigh, shoulders slumping as that worn grief overwhelms all else. “Suppose it doesn’t matter. You can’t save him anymore.”

On that we are in complete agreement.

“I wouldn’t have been able to save him even before he Fell,” my treacherous mouth says instead of dropping this awful topic.

“You could have,” Anakin Skywalker says without a trace of doubt. His absolute certainty makes everything so much worse. “You’re like Luke.”

“So you’ve said.” Without offering any further explanation.

Anakin Skywalker chuckles softly.

“Luke isn’t like us. He doesn’t need more,” he says, making it clear who that ‘us’ was referring to. “He’s content. When he gets what he wants, he’s satisfied. Like you.”

Huh. I never considered myself content, but hearing him say it like that, I realize that it’s true. I don’t need anything more than my ship in order to be happy. Anything else is just a bonus.

Finn lets out a sleepy mumble. Correction, I don’t need more than my ship and the few people who’ve somehow managed to worm their way past my abandonment issues.

“I’m guessing Luke Skywalker gets that from his mother?” I quip, relieved that the previous topic has been dropped.

“Oh no, Padmé was almost as bad as me,” Anakin Skywalker returns without hesitation, the ever present love for his son joined by an equally strong love for his wife. “She just hid it better.”

“I thought you said she was a grounding presence?” I tease, before I grimace as I realize that I’m turning us back to the previous horrifying topic.

“She was. To me,” Anakin Skywalker says with a smile, his love for Padmé Amidala somehow managing to become even greater. He shakes his head. “No, Luke didn’t get it from her,” he continues, thankfully avoiding the previous topic. “He gets it from my mom.”

Huh. That’s unexpected. I never really thought about Anakin Skywalker’s mother, at least, not as the grandmother of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Now that I have, my curiosity is roused.

What else have her grandchildren inherited from her?

Before I can ask, Anakin Skywalker bolts outright, eyes unseeing. Then he radiates a terror so intense it both threatens to choke me and snaps my mind into overdrive.

Anakin Skywalker disappears just as Finn bolts upright.

“Status?” he demands, disorientated eyes darting around the room and one of his hands instinctively grabbing the blaster placed next to the bed. I’m upright and examining my surroundings as well, throwing out my senses and searching for any sign of danger.

I don’t find any.

“Rey?” he demands, a little confused but mostly ordering me to explain what’s going on.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, shut up and let me focus,” I return, most of my attention on reaching out as far as I can.

Still can’t find any danger. R2-D2 feels perfectly fine, so I’m assuming that Luke Skywalker is as well.

Closing my eyes, I reach for the Force as a whole. The unusual clarity this island offers makes it much easier to interpret the currents than usual.

There’s no danger of any kind. Direct or indirect.

I don’t relax, but my mind does lose its frantic energy.

“We’re not in danger,” I remember to say to Finn. He loses some of his tension and puts the safety back on, but his mind remains alert, all traces of sleep gone.

“What happened?” he demands.

“Anakin Skywalker was here and something terrified him. I don’t know what.” Everything is fine here, including R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker. What could’ve caused him to react like that?

Finn lets out a carefully controlled breath. He’s frustrated, annoyed, and keeping a tight lid on it all. It’s enough to draw my full attention.

“Rey, I know explaining things isn’t your style, but I’m going to need a better sitrep than that.”

I review what I just said. Right, that wasn’t exactly clarifying.

“Anakin Skywalker showed up after you went to sleep. We talked, mostly about his family. Something happened during our conversation and it terrified him. That’s what woke you up. It wasn’t because of anything I said.”

There, that should clear things up.

Finn sighs, frustration and annoyance replaced by weariness. He rub his eyes.

“Right. Is this something we need to worry about?”

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “I don’t sense any danger, but if it makes Anakin Skywalker act like that...”

I shrug, uneasy and wary. If _Anakin Skywalker_ is terrified, things can’t be good.

“So what could make him act like that?” Finn asks, analysing the situation with brutal practicality. I shrug again.

“Don’t know. I’d say it was because something happened to Luke Skywalker, but–”

I fall silent as realization strikes. I’m pretty sure that Luke Skywalker is fine.

Leia Organa might not be.

Quickly clamping my hand over my binary beacon and closing my eyes, I shut out my surroundings and focus on the Force. I ask it to tell me what’s going on with Leia Organa.

The Force doesn’t answer. Not quite. But there’s something...

I need to be more specific. Is Leia Organa hurt?

Still no answer. Damn it.

Does she need help?

...No. Yes. Maybe.

Well, that’s helpful. All right, let’s try something else. Do we need to go back?

No.

The answer is immediate and certain, more of a command than anything else. We don’t need to go back. Yet.

The strength of that command means that the Force is going to interfere if we try to leave right now. Great.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I let go of my focus and open my eyes.

I’m immediately bombarded by Finn’s barely contained panic.

“Is Poe alright?” he demands and for a moment, I actually think that he’s talking about his bird.

He’s not.

“I don’t know,” I say, hating that I can’t give him a better answer.

Finn’s panic almost breaks free.

“Try again,” he commands. “Find out if he’s hurt.”

I close my eyes and shut out my surroundings again, focusing on Poe this time. Is he hurt?

No answer. Come on, give me something to work with.

I focus harder. Is he all right physically speaking? What about mentally? Does he need our help?

The only thing I’m getting from the Force is that we need to remain here.

I let out a frustrated sigh and open my eyes.

“I can’t tell if he’s alright.” No matter how much I wish I could. I want to soothe Finn’s panic.

I can’t.

“I’m sorry, Finn.”

Finn grits his teeth and closes his eyes, the hand not holding his blaster clenching into a fist. His panic has officially broken free.

“You can,” I realize in a burst of inspiration. Finn’s gaze snaps back to mine, more on reflex than anything else. It’s clear that he has no idea what I mean by that.

“You can tell if Poe is fine or not,” I clarify. It makes Finn look at me like I’ve sprouted two heads, disbelief momentarily overtaking his panic.

“You do realize that Poe is light years away from here, right? And I don’t have magic powers like you do.”

“Finn, listen to me,” I say with the Force, ensuring I have his full attention. “You have a Force bond with Poe. You can tell if he’s alright or not.”

Distance doesn’t matter, not with the sheer talent Finn possesses. He formed bonds with both me and Poe after knowing us for barely a day. He managed to break our connection even with Kylo Ren manipulating it. And he did all of that without training.

Finn can tell if Poe is all right or not.

“I have a Force bond with Poe?” he returns incredulously. Didn’t he realize? Wait, no, of course he didn’t. He didn’t even know we had a bond until the asshole used it to torture us.

Doesn’t matter, what matters is that he has a bond with Poe and he can use it to figure out if Poe is hurt or not.

“Yes, and you can use that bond to find out if he’s alright,” I say, still infusing my voice with the Force to make sure my words hit home.

“How?” Finn demands, nothing on his mind but Poe’s safety. Good.

I grasp his hands.

“Close your eyes.”

Finn closes his eyes.

“Now think about Poe. Is he alright?”

Finn falters, hesitation dampening some of his determination.

“I don’t–”

“Don’t hesitate,” I interrupt, needing his full focus back on Poe. “Don’t worry about your feelings, just focus on what they’re saying,” I continue, gently nudging his presence with my own. I focus on Poe’s safety myself to make sure his own thoughts turn in the right direction. “Just think of Poe and nothing else.”

Finn takes a deep breath, determination back in full strength. It takes a few agonizing moments, but then I fell the hidden vastness of his presence shift. I can’t tell the details of what he’s doing but I don’t need to.

He’s reaching for Poe.

After a few moments that feel like an eternity, Finn lets out a harsh breath, relief breaking his panic. I let out a relieved sigh myself.

Poe is all right. Finn wouldn’t be reacting like this if he wasn’t.

“Poe isn’t hurt. Not physically. And we shouldn’t leave yet.”

Finn opens his eyes, his focus shattered. He’s startled and confused by his own words.

“We shouldn’t leave yet?” he asks, half to me, half just expressing his confusion.

“I got that as well,” I say. “The Force wants us to stay.” For now.

“But Poe is alright,” he more orders than demands, but it’s turned into a plea by the way he squeezes my hands, looking for reassurance.

“Poe is alright,” I confirm, squeezing his hands back. It’s normal that he’s doubting himself now that he’s no longer focusing, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Poe is all right.

I’m so glad he is.

I really hope everyone else is all right as well.

Finn lets out another harsh breath, the last of his fear fading away.

“So what do we do now?”

I hesitate, thinking it over. But, well, there’s really only one thing we can do.

“We go back to sleep.”

“Just like that?” Finn demands incredulously. I give a firm nod.

“Just like that.”

Not like we can do anything else. If we try to leave, the Force will force us back through a series of improbable events. Better to stay here than waste our strength. For now.

Finn huffs and shakes his head with a rueful grin.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go back to sleep.”

We settle back down. Finn falls asleep with military precision again, but his hold on me is tighter than before, though he’s still careful of my injuries. I hug him back, wanting to soothe him.

I don’t expect to fall asleep easily. Not after everything that’s happened. But it seems I’m more tired than I thought. Or maybe Finn’s effect on me is even greater than I thought.

I fall asleep before I even realize what’s happening.

* * *

 

_No, no, no, they can’t be, she can’t be, no, no, no, no!_

_Poe can only stare with horror at the wreckage of what was once the Command Center, frozen to the spot as the pieces, the bodies, continue flying away almost faster than their ship is going, their momentum caused by the blast that destroyed the bridge._

_Except it can’t have been destroyed because they can’t be dead, she can’t be dead, Leia can’t be dead!_

_Something is moving in a way it shouldn’t. The only reason he catches it is because it’s moving towards the ship instead of away from it. He can’t see what it is, it’s too far away for that but he doesn’t need to see it. It can only be one thing, one person._

_It has to be her._

_And then he’s running, no idea of when he started, only knowing that he has to reach the bridge. He skids to a halt when he reaches the airlock leading to the ruined Command Center because Han is standing there, one hand on the glass that shows the wreckage outside, the other hovering over the pressurization switch._

_“Come on, sweetheart, come one, almost there, just keep going.”_

_It really is her, it’s the General, it’s Leia, she’s alive, Han wouldn’t be acting like this if she wasn’t, she somehow survived – she needs a medic._

_Poe hears his own voice call for a medic, knows he should be getting one himself but he can’t move, can’t even see if his order is being followed, can only stare at the door as Han hits the pressurization switch – and then she’s there, falling into Han’s arms, eyes closed and skin grey, frost clinging to her and oh Force let her be alive, she has to be alive, please, please, please let her be alive._

_Poe doesn’t know how he gets close enough to fall to his knees next to her, is barely aware of the words escaping him. The only thing thing he sees is Leia._

_The only thing he hears is Han’s desperate plea._

_“Leia, don’t leave me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse is back! You guys, you have no idea how relieved I am! My muse is back!!! Normally when it leaves it's gone for at least half a year, but this time it's already back!!!! 
> 
> Here's to hoping it stays. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter full of fluff and character study! And a little bit of angst.


	6. Chapter 6

**Eleven Years Ago**

I’m dreaming.

The realization isn’t sudden. I know that I’m dreaming in the same way that I know the sky is blue. It isn’t worthy of attention. It’s just a fact of life. I’m dreaming.

I’m dreaming about the Island.

I walk to the shallow pool located in the center of the cave. It’s filled with tangible Force, physical currents circling each other gently. Dark and Light in perfect harmony.

A droplet of Force falls down from somewhere high above. It lands in the exact center of the pool, causing ripples that blend with the currents. It alters the rhythm of the currents a little, but even with the changes, the Force remains perfectly balanced.

I watch the mesmerizing display for what is both an eternity and a single moment. Time doesn’t matter in a dream.

Survival doesn’t matter in a dream.

I walk out of the cave, to the cliff that is more Force than rock, though it isn’t the pure Force of the pool.

It’s still beautiful. Still soothing.

Sitting down on the rock made for meditation, I admire the Island spread out beneath me. The dips and valleys, the hills and peaks. The Force so strong I’m more seeing than feeling it.

I love these dreams.

Sometimes I explore the Island. Sometimes I play around like I can’t when I’m awake. Like the child my body is.

Sometimes I cry.

This time I don’t do any of those things. I just sit here.

I do nothing in a way I can only afford to do in dreams.

I feel at peace in a way I only do when I’m here.

I don’t often dream of the Island.

I never want to wake up when I do.

* * *

 

**Twenty-One Years Ago**

He screams. An absent part of him is aware that he does.

Most of him can only drown in denial. He’s dreaming, he knows he is but that doesn’t matter because it feels _real_.

The death of his parents feels real.

And then it doesn’t, the fire of Mom and the shadows of Dad surrounding him, tangling with his own presence and he’s clinging back as hard as he can and they’re calling his name and they’re here, they aren’t dead, they’re _alive_.

He realizes that they’re hugging him physically as well; He realizes that he’s hugging them back.

He realizes that he’s awake. He’s awake and his parents are _alive_.

Mom is talking. So is Dad.

He can’t understand the words, can only cling to them as he tries to banish the images still haunting him.

He tries to banish the vision still haunting him.

“You died.”

He hears the choked up whisper and realizes that it came from himself. He shivers violently and tightens his hold around Dad’s neck even more, feels Dad’s discomfort but he can’t bring himself to loosen his hold. He can’t loosen his too tight hold on Mom’s hand either, hugs her arm to him as hard as he can.

Mom presses her body even more against his back, cocooning him between her and Dad even more than he already was. Love and worry surround him with an intensity he desperately clings to because it means his parents are alive, they aren’t dead, they’re here and they’re alive.

“It was just a dream, Ben,” Mom says, her free hand stroking his hair in a way he usually finds soothing.

Nothing can soothe him right now.

“We’re alright, kiddo. We’re here,” Dad says in a voice that normally calms him down, but it’s just as useless as Mom stroking his hair.

He starts crying. Silently, brutal shivers wrecking his body the entire time.

He cries in a way he only does when this happens.

Dad’s arms tighten a little around him, before he starts rubbing his back. Mom starts humming the lullaby the always does when this happens.

It doesn’t happen often. The visions, yes, those happen semi-frequently. But he doesn’t often dream of his parents dying.

Every time he does, he becomes more terrified.

Visions aren’t inevitable, he knows that. They only show possibilities. They show what might happen, not what will.

They always show the same thing when his parents die. The time and place are different, but the essence is always the same.

His parents die because he kills them.

He opens his eyes and looks over Dad’s shoulder, already knowing what he’ll see.

Grandfather looks back at him with the same terror he’s feeling himself.

Visions aren’t inevitable. They’re possibilities. And this is a possibility he will _never_ allow to come true.

So why does it feel like he won’t be able to stop it from happening?


	7. Chapter 7

I wake up feeling refreshed in a way I rarely do. I’m also deliciously warm. If I’m not careful, using Finn as a heater could easily become addicting. Not that I think he’ll have a problem with that.

I check up on Artie. It’s still standing watch next to the entrance, but then my attention is drawn to Finn’s birds. They’re waiting outside of my ship and they’re feeling impatient. So impatient, in fact, that they’re purposely distracting themselves by doing other things like grooming and playing around.

I do a headcount, and yes, all forty-one are present. Finn really left an impression.

He does that with everyone.

Carefully untangling myself from his embrace, I get out of bed. Finn almost wakes up when I do, but then he grabs my pillow and curls around it. Apparently that’s a suitable substitute because his mind eases back into full slumber.

Lifting my arms in a stretch, careful not to stress my wounds, I savor the rare occasion of feeling this good right after waking up. While my time on Jakku has left me with an inability to sleep in, I’m not what can be called a morning person.

Moving to the bathroom – I still.

The Force is moving in a way I’ve never felt before, enveloping me until it’s all I can sense. It sets my body alight, it reaches down to my very soul. A soundless whisper I’m unable to understand, an endless scream that makes perfect sense and time itself seems to stop as the message I can’t understand yet somehow do reaches an inaudible crescendo – and then I’m in another place.

I’m in another place with _him_.

Sith yellow eyes are wide as they look back at me, as stunned as I am. As my shock starts to make way for horror, his own makes way for joy and delight. He gains the boyish grin I hate seeing.

“Hello, Rey.”

His voice erases the last of my shock and I lash out at him as hard as I can.

My attack flows through the fire of his presence without any effect. He’s just as surprised and confused by this as I am.

What the hell is going on?

“Now isn’t this interesting.”

His intrigue and curiosity makes my guard go up even further. He didn’t call me over, that’s more than clear, so how did I end up here?

He waves off a droid I’d only absently registered was present. Now that he’s drawn my attention to it, I realize that it’s a medical droid. In fact, I’m in a medbay, the room cold, sterile, and filled with high quality equipment.

The droid had been tinkering with a prosthetic.

The prosthetic is attached to Kylo Ren.

Vicious satisfaction overtakes me as I look at the black metal attached to his wrist. I did that. I cut off his hand, I made him scream with agony and _fear_. It was the most satisfying moment of my entire life.

The prosthetic is lifted into the air, drawing my attention back to the asshole as a whole. He’s wearing a playful smile as he shows off his prosthetic, radiating mischievousness and pleasure in equal measure. Part of that pleasure comes from the way his smile pulls on the wound I gave him, an angry gash running down his face. He hasn’t treated it beyond the bare basics and he revels in the pain his own expression is causing. Sick asshole.

“Do you like it, Rey? I know I do.”

Just like that, he ruins almost all of my satisfaction. The asshole is a master at doing that.

“We match now.”

And now part of me actually _regrets_ cutting off his hand. The way he glances down at my own prosthetic, at the replacement of the foot he cut off all those years ago, only reinforces the feeling.

It also makes me become aware of the fact that I’m only wearing a loose shirt and shorts. I wouldn’t care about that any other circumstance, but this is the asshole. Having him see me like this makes me feel even more vulnerable than his presence always causes.

I resist the urge to grab something out of my closet to cover up, stubbornly lifting my chin instead. He can feel my discomfort of course, but that doesn’t mean I have to physically show it as well.

Naturally, the asshole drags his eyes over my body in a way that makes a violent shiver run through me before I can help it. My disgust is made even greater by the way his gaze lingers on every single scar he’s given me, pride and satisfaction woven through a desire that causes true nausea. It’s even worse when he looks at the wounds he gave me during our last fight.

Worst of all is when his eyes linger on parts of me that bear no mark from him. He should have no interest in those parts.

He does.

I always do my best to ignore the desire he feels for me. Usually that’s… not easy, but manageable. The desire is normally more of an undercurrent, only flaring up when we fight, and especially when I manage to hurt him. He desires me because of what I can do to him, not because of what I look like.

Not this time. This time, his desire is purely physical.

I’m putting on as many layers possible as soon as I’m gone.

When he finally meets my gaze again, his own is heady in a way that makes me clench my fists with a near irresistible desire to claw his eyes out. It’s made even more awful by the warm affection he feels, yet even that isn’t the worst part.

The worst part is that he feels _possessive_.

“You look stunning.”

“I’m going to rip out your eyes and shove them down your throat.” Or his tongue. His heart. His lungs, his stomach, his spine. I’m not picky.

“You say the sweetest things, Rey,” the asshole says with that infuriating grin, as always adding my name just because he knows how much I hate hearing him say it. Like I need any more incentive to want to punch his teeth in.

“Die in a fire.”

He laughs like I just told the funniest of jokes and it makes my anger grow to the point where I almost choke on it. I hate everything about him, but his ever present amusement at my expense is one of the things I hate most about him.

“That would be poetic.”

Just like that I’m reminded of the fact that he’s Anakin Skywalker’s grandson, that he’s Luke Skywalker’s nephew –

Not thinking about this.

He turns his prosthetic around, drawing my attention back to it. He puts an expression of false worry and flexes the wicked claws those metal fingers end in.

“What do you think. Is it too much?” the asshole who purposely dresses like a wanna-be Darth Vader asks like it’s a real question.

He dresses like his grandfather – still not thinking about this.

He nods like I gave him a verbal answer, his act now one of mock innocence. He does so enjoy putting on a show.

“You’re right, Rey. This suits my image perfectly.”

I tense up even further as he gets off the chair he’d been sitting on. The movement causes the other wounds I gave him during our fight to flare up. Just like the one on his face, he hasn’t treated them beyond the bare basics.

He savors the pain they’re causing him.

My nails dig into my palms almost to the point of blood as he starts coming closer. Once again, I lash out with everything I have. Unfortunately, the first time wasn’t a fluke. My attack flows through him without effect.

The asshole has the nerve to try to caress my own presence. Luckily, he’s under the same restriction I am. While we’re connected as always, he can’t touch my shields in the way he usually can.

I still throw up another few layers for good measure. Given that he isn't assaulting my mind like usual, I can do so with ease.

His grin transforms into a smile, radiating warmth and affection in a way that makes me bare my teeth in a snarl. If he dares to get close enough to try to touch me, I’m going to break every single one of his ribs with my bare hands.

He halts just before he would’ve gotten too close, his playfulness letting me know he doing it on purpose. He knows exactly what I’d do if he came any closer.

I hate how easily he can read me.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Rey?”

If I knew that, I’d know how to get out of here. Obviously the Force brought me here, but why?

Satisfaction joins his curiosity. Once again he’s following my thoughts with far too much ease.

“The Force really does work in mysterious ways. Don’t you agree, Rey?”

Just because he’s the one who asked, I want to say no.

I don’t. He’d sense the falsehood and that’s a satisfaction I refuse to give him.

He chuckles like I said ‘no’ out loud anyway, before he tilts his head, curiosity overtaking his amusement.

“You can see my surroundings,” the asshole states the obvious. “I wonder why I can’t see yours.”

Blind fear overtakes me, followed by an equally strong rush of relief as my mind consciously processes what he just said. He can’t see my surroundings.

He can’t see Finn.

I resist the urge to glance behind me at where Finn is still sleeping, though not as deeply as before. I don’t need to of course, can sense him –

I can sense Finn. Part of me had been aware of that, in the same way I’d been aware that I’m still present on my ship. I still see my bedroom, feel the familiar floor of my bedroom beneath my foot. I hear Finn’s breathing, smell the unique scent of the air inside my ship.

At the same time I’m smelling antiseptic and feel the floor of the medbay. I’m hearing the gentle buzz of the medical droid, the faint sound of Kylo Ren’s own breathing. I see him as clearly as I see the door leading to my bathroom, located right behind him and nowhere near him at the same time.

This isn’t normal. When I’m mentally called to another place, I can no longer sense my physical surroundings. That’s what happens when your mind is no longer present.

If I’d needed even more proof that the Force itself is causing this awful meeting, this would be it. The only normal thing is that I can’t sense anything in the medbay through the Force.

Not aside from Kylo Ren.

“What are you thinking, Rey?”

“You can’t tell?” I mock, both surprised and viciously satisfied. This is a rare occurrence indeed.

“That last? No,” he has the nerve to _tease_ , delighted by my reaction. Ruining my satisfaction like always. “As for what you were thinking before that, well. I can take a guess.”

His anticipation makes my fear return. I do my best to smother it, desperately trying to delay the inevitable.

I fail.

“You were afraid,” the monster says in a way that makes the hair on the back of my neck shoot up straight.

He knows. I already knew that, but a small part of me had still been foolishly hoping that he didn’t.

“You’re afraid right now. Not for yourself, though. So what do you fear, Rey?” he asks like he doesn’t already know the answer, purposely drawing out my suffering.

It takes everything I have to keep quiet, to not give him the reaction he wants.

It doesn’t matter. He finds my refusal to speak just as entertaining.

What I hate most about him is how I can never win with him.

“Or should I say, who do you fear for?”

The terror he always makes me feel is a close second.

His grin grows even more boyish, despite the wound running down his face. It’s completely unfair how even with the angry gash and the mockery of a prosthetic, he still doesn't look like the monster he is.

“Is Finn with you?”

“Stay the hell away from him.”

The words escape me without my consent, fear erasing my every thought because he’s going after _Finn_.

And then I’m angry, am choking on pure fury because I won’t allow him to do this, won’t allow him to hurt Finn again, won’t allow him to drag Finn into one of his twisted _games_.

If he tries to hurt Finn, I’ll kill him. Even if that causes me to Fall.

I was able to walk away on Starkiller Base.

I won’t be able to if he goes after Finn.

His grin grows in a way that should look manic but doesn’t and he knows exactly what I’m thinking and it _excites_ him and then I’m moving forward so I can punch his face in –

“Rey?”

Terror obliterates my rage because Finn is awake and he’s sitting up and Kylo Ren has tilted his head and he didn’t do it because I stopped moving but because _he heard Finn say that_.

His grin manages to grow even more, his delight made even worse by the exhilaration he feels, the anticipation setting his every nerve alight.

He feels like he always does when he’s about to start one of his twisted games.

“How long do you think you’ll be able to protect him, Rey?”

I punch him right where I ran him through with my lightsaber – he disappears just as my fist would’ve impacted with him and I’m already pulling my hit before my mind catches up to what my body is doing but it’s too late.

My hit glances against the bathroom door. Given that it was amplified with the Force, the metal is dented, causing instant horror that’s immediately followed by blind rage because of course it isn’t enough for that asshole to ruin my day, he had to make me _damage my ship_ –

“Rey!”

Finn’s hands on my arms snaps my mind back into working order. I realize that everything not bolted down is rattling like crazy. Closing my eyes, I take deep breaths and force myself to even out my presence.

Slowly, the rattling stops. When I feel back in control, I open my eyes.

“Are you alright?” Finn demands the moment I do, anxious and worried.

“I _damaged my ship_ ,” I snap, still angry with the asshole, with myself for losing it like this, with this entire damn situation. “What the hell do you think?”

Finn’s worry grows. There’s also an involuntary flicker of hurt. Great.

Letting out a harsh breath, I shake off his grip and inspect the damage I caused, distracting myself so I don’t snap at him again. I shouldn’t take my anger out on him.

“I’m…” Not fine. I’m not even okay. Not really. “Not angry with you,” I finish, figuring that’s the most important thing to say.

The dent is shallow, thank the Force. I also didn’t damage the internal wiring. This won’t be hard to fix.

“Rey, what happened?” Finn asks, his voice soft but his feelings letting me know that he won’t let this go. Because that’s just what I need right now.

I owe him an explanation, I know I do. I just really don’t want to talk about this.

“The asshole was being an asshole,” I explain curtly, going over the damage again. Partly to make sure it really is as superficial as it seems, but mostly it’s to distract myself from Finn’s expected reaction.

Finn’s horror and blind terror is still strong enough to make me grimace.

“He was here?” he whispers with denial and rising panic.

“No, I was there,” I correct while checking over the door as a whole. The power is still flowing smoothly, and while I’ll need to open and close it to make sure the mechanisms are still fully functional, right now it seems that –

“I’m going to need a lot more than that, Rey,” Finn orders. I let out another harsh breath and turn my gaze towards him. It’s a close call, but I manage to keep myself from glaring.

“I got called over to him, he acted like his usual asshole self and then our connection broke,” I summarize, not managing to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to ignore it and move on.

Finn clenches his jaw, annoyance and frustration joining his worry and fear

“Did he hurt you?” he asks in a deliberately even voice, not taking out his frustration out on me. While it makes me realize just how much of an ass I’m being, I still can’t stop myself from snapping.

“It’s the asshole, of course he hurt me. Torturing me is literally his favorite thing to do.”

I regret the words as soon as they escape me. Finn’s panic breaks free and runs his hands down my sides, barely remembering to take care with my bruised ribs. Anxious eyes examine every inch of me, looking for wounds that aren’t there.

“Where did he hurt you? Do you need bacta, a medic– we don’t have a medic!” he babbles. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“Finn,” I say while grabbing his hands, the use of his name causing his gaze to focus on mine. “He didn’t hurt me physically.”

Just mentally. More than usual because of his threat to Finn, but nothing I can’t handle.

I have to handle it.

“I’m okay,” I say with the Force when Finn opens his mouth to argue, too shaken up to just take my word for it.

My projection of sincerity works. This time Finn believes me. Kind of believes me.

“You’re not okay,” he says, but he’s referring to my mental state, not my physical one.

“I’m used to it,” I say, trying to put him at ease.

It doesn’t work.

“You’re _used_ to it?” Finn says with renewed horror. “How often does this happen?”

Before I can answer, the bedroom door opens. Artie has finished making his way over.

Artie’s worry is immediately replaced by a storm of horror as he spots the dent I made in the bathroom door.

[Query – how did Gorgeous-Thing get damaged?]

I grimace. This won’t be pretty.

“I hit it.”

Artie’s horror makes way for murderous rage and it slides its taser out. This is more than enough for it to shoot me.

Finn foolishly moves between me and Artie. I yank him behind me with the Force and give him a warning glare. When Artie shoots me, I have to catch the electricity to prevent it from damaging my ship. That’s harder to do when Finn is in front of me.

[Adjusting defensive protocols; Threat Level 8.]

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“You think I wanted to do this?” I snap, my previous anger back with a vengeance. “Blame the asshole for being a complete and utter _asshole_.”

I can’t believe he made me _damage my ship_. This is without a doubt one of the most awful things he’s ever done to me, and that’s really saying something.

Artie’s rage isn’t diminished in any way, but it doesn’t shoot me. It would’ve under any other circumstances, but the asshole is always an exception.

Artie understands what Kylo Ren does to me.

I realize that things are rattling around again. With effort, I manage to even out my presence again.

[This unit will be inspecting Annoyance-Rey’s repairs. If this unit isn’t satisfied with them, it will shoot Annoyance-Rey in her sleep.]

Relief erases most of my anger. I hadn’t been looking forward to fighting with Artie.

“If you aren’t satisfied, I might even let you hit me.”

A lie, I hate getting tasered. I also wouldn’t be able to stop myself from reflexively catching the electricity if Artie shoots me while I’m asleep. But it’s the gesture that counts.

[Defensive protocols disengaged,] Artie ends our conversation while putting its taser away, before it wheels away. It doesn’t return to the entrance, going to the mainframe instead. Planning to start its daily routine of diagnostics.

“Was it actually going to shoot you?” Finn asks, disturbed and worryingly focused like he’s in a battle. He better not think of Artie as an enemy.

“I would’ve caught it. Artie knows that,” I explain, still aggravated even if I’m no longer quite so angry. “Artie is my friend,” I finish with a warning glare when Finn opens his mouth with the clear intention to point out how messed up that is. It isn’t messed up. My friendship with Artie might be unconventional, but it’s a perfectly healthy one. The only reason Artie shoots me is because it has absolute faith that the shots will never reach me. More than that, it has absolute faith that I'll catch them.

Its attacks would harm my ship if I didn't.

Ignoring even that, if for some reason I wouldn’t be able to catch them, I would still dodge them. It would, in fact, take an effort for me not to dodge them.

Finn clenches his jaw, not agreeing with my claim. Tough luck.

He takes a calming breath, taking ruthless control of his emotions. Then he looks at me with single minded focus.

“Rey, how often does he… call you over,” Finn settles on, his brief hesitation not diminishing the intensity of his question. Order, really.

He won’t let me get away with not answering.

I grimace and rub my eyes, fed up with everything. And the day started out so well, too.

“He gets through my defenses every two months or so.”

It used to be worse. Before Maz, he appeared or called me over almost every week. Maz’s teachings let me reduce that frequency to about once a month.

Yet no matter how much I practice, no many how many defenses I throw up, I’ve never been able to keep him out for more than three months. And I’ve managed that only one time.

Fortunately, I can break our connection almost as soon as it forms. I could do that even before I met Maz. Only took me three ‘visits’ before I figured out how to kick him out of my mind.

One of the most terrifying things about this meeting was that I hadn’t been able to do that. I’d been trapped.

I’d been trapped because the Force wanted me to be there.

Why?

“I’m really okay, Finn,” I say when he opens his mouth to express his horror at how often we meet. “I can handle it,” I amend when he gives me a look that’s as clear as his feelings, leaving no doubt as to what he thinks of my claim of being okay. “I also really don’t want to talk about this. Right now,” I add as a concession. Finn’s stubborn determination makes clear that he won’t let this go.

Finn wavers, struggling with his desire to keep pushing me about this topic and his desire to respect my wishes.

I’m so glad that last wins out.

“We’re coming back to this later,” he warns, a small part of him daring me to defy him.

I don’t. Instead I manage to summon a faint smile for him, relieved that he’s dropping this. For now.

I know we’ll have to talk about this later, no matter how much I don’t want to. Finn needs to learn how to defend himself when Kylo Ren does this to him.

We don’t need to do that right now.

“Thanks.”

My gratitude makes bashful pleasure rise, and even more importantly, it makes Finn relax. Mostly relax.

“Right. So what do we do now?”

“I’m fixing my ship." Literally everything else can wait.

Finn raises a brow, surprised and a little amused at my vehemence. He glances at the dent I made.

“Really? It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” I repeat incredulously, unable to believe what I just heard. “Are you blind? Look at it!”

The metal is _dented_. It’s physically painful to see. And yes, Finn isn’t attached to my ship like I am, but still! How can he say that this isn’t a big deal?

“It’s just a scratch,” Finn say mischievously and I know he’s only tasing but his words are still the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

“It’s _dented_ ,” I snap, unable to believe the nerve of him.

“Only a little,” Finn says with a cheeky grin. He’s having an aggravating amount of fun at my expense. “Really, you should let it be. Ships this old are meant to be beat up, you know.”

“Get out.”

The words escape me without thought but I mean them from the bottom of my heart. If he’s going to insult my ship, I don’t want him anywhere near me.

Finn’s eyes go wide with shock, quickly followed by regret and rising anxiety.

“Rey, I was joking.”

I resist the urge to snap at him again. My ship is _not_ a joking matter.

I tell him exactly that.

“My ship is no joking matter, Finn.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” he mutters more to himself than to me, before he gives me a purposely bright smile that’s at odds with the anxiety he still feels. “No more joking about the most amazing ship in the galaxy.”

“Damn straight,” I agree, an involuntary smile growing. He doesn’t consider my ship to be the most amazing in the galaxy of course, but he does understand that it’s the most amazing to me. As far as apologies go, that’s more than enough.

My ship is the most amazing in the galaxy objectively speaking as well of course, but given that Finn hasn’t seen me put it through its paces, I can forgive him for not realizing this yet. He’ll learn.

Finn’s smile becomes real, relieved that we made up.

“So we’re good?” he asks just to be sure.

“We’re good,” I assure him. When the last of Finn’s tension disappears, I turn my attention back to the damage I caused.

Laying my hand on top of it, I close my eyes. Smoothing out a dent isn’t difficult, but this is my ship. I’m going to be examining things on a molecular level to ensure I don’t create even a hint of fatigue. This spot will remain as strong as every other part of the door.

Finn shifts his balance before I can lose myself in the metal, awkwardness rising. He’s at a loss of what to do.

“Go and have breakfast,” I suggest. “Or go meet your birds. They’re waiting for you outside.”

Surprise and delight flare high.

“They are?”

He genuinely can’t believe that his birds would be waiting for him. Self-esteem issues at their finest.

“All forty-one of them,” I confirm, opening my eyes and giving him a smile. His self-esteem issues might prevent him from seeing it, but Finn is amazing. Of course his birds are waiting for him. “They’re very impatient to see you.”

Finn needs no further encouragement, racing to put his clothes on. He’s gotten as far as pants and a shirt when he stops, stunned realization flaring high.

“I don’t have to put on my uniform,” he says softly, mind completely blown. I’m suddenly reminded of the fact that it’s just been mere days since he defected from the First Order. Mere days since he gained his freedom.

“You can do whatever you want, Finn,” I say with the Force, needing him to know this.

Finn’s stunned expression turns into a disbelieving smile, a breathtaking amount of wonder rising.

“I can wear boots _without socks_.”

I laugh. That is without a doubt one of the best answers possible to being told you can do whatever you want.

“You absolutely can,” I agree with a grin. Finn beams back at me, before putting words into action.

It’s adorable how delighted he is as he puts on his boots _without_ first putting on socks. His defiance and underlying fear, on the other hand, make me want to burn the entire First Order to the ground.

After giving me a quick hug and wishing me luck with my repairs, Finn races away. I keep my attention on him as he lowers the ramp and feel a smile grow as he’s immediately mobbed by his birds. Both Finn and his birds are radiating a stunning amount of joy. My smile grows.

It’s unbelievable, really. I had a meeting with the asshole in which he made me _damage my ship_ , yet I’m actually in a fairly decent mood. I even laughed out loud, something I would’ve said was impossible before today.

Finn is amazing. Just by being here, he changes things for the better.

How many people can claim the same?

* * *

 

_“General Organa– Leia, is unconscious but recovering,” D’Acy says, her usual calm nothing but the thinnest of veneers. The part of Poe still thinking rationally admires that. Not many would be able to give even the illusion of calm right now._

_Most of him can only keep looking at the binary beacon he’s holding. The one that fell off Leia’s wrist when she –_

_His thumb keeps compulsively stroking the blinking light. His other hand is lying on BB-8’s dome, his buddy a silent but soothing presence._

_He can’t stop thinking about Rey. If she’d been here, she could’ve stopped the bridge and fighter hangar from being blown up._

_She could’ve saved them._

_He knows that’s an irrational thought. Even with her being able to use the Force, it’s unfair of him to expect so much from her. He just can’t help it._

_He can’t stop thinking of the fact that Finn might’ve died if he’d been here. Can’t help but be glad that he isn’t here._

_Finn is safe._

_They aren’t._

_“That’s the only good news I have,” D’Acy continues in an impressively steady voice. “Admiral Ackbar, all our leadership…”_

_D’Acy’s breath hitches, the sound deafening in the heavy silence pushing down on all of them._

_“They’re gone. Leia was the sole survivor on the bridge.”_

_Anxious murmuring starts to rise. Under any other circumstances, Poe would’ve been paying attention to what was being said._

_Right now it’s just static._

_Leia was the sole survivor. Everyone else is dead._

_Every one of their faces haunts him._

_“If she were here,” D’Acy continues with a strength Poe wouldn’t have been able to summon himself. The murmurs die down. “–she’d say, save your sorrow for after the fight.”_

_Yes, she would say that. Leia would push aside her pain and grief until they were out of danger. She’d do whatever it takes to ensure that the rest of them survive._

_How can Poe do any different?_

_Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to look away from the beacon, to meet D’Acy’s gaze head on. She isn’t looking at him in particular of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that he needs to pull himself together._

_The Resistance needs him to be Commander Dameron. He can break down after they’re out of danger, not before._

_He won’t allow himself to let everyone down by letting his feelings rule him._

_Not again._

_“To that end, the chain of command is clear as to who should take her place.”_

_Yes, it is. There’s only one person who can take over and everyone knows it._

_All eyes are already turning even before D’Acy announces him. Including Poe’s._

_“General Solo.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the asshole returns. It's funny, I've written adorable Ben for so long now that I'd almost forgotten what a monster Kylo Ren actually is. This made me remember in explicit detail just why Rey hates him so much.


	8. Chapter 8

**Ten Years Ago**

Quietly sneaking past a sleeping Unkar Plutt, I slip out the room and go outside into the desert. The cold bites into me even with the thermal blanket wrapped around myself, my breath misting the air.

For once, the cold is nice. Refreshing even.

Sitting down, I snuggle deeper into my blanket, covering up as much as possible. The cold might feel refreshing, but it’s still freezing. Without my blanket, I’d start getting hypothermia in no time. Even with my blanket, I won’t be able to stay out for long.

I can stay out long enough.

Closing my eyes, I focus on the spectacle of the Force. It’s just as incomprehensible as always, yet at the same time, I can almost understand it.

I always can after dreaming about the Island.

Part of me wants to reach for it, to push through the barrier I’ve never been able to surmount and connect with the Force as I know I should be capable of.

Most of me just wants to enjoy the beauty of it all. It’s a living painting, colors moving and blending in the most breathtaking of ways. Except I’m feeling the colors instead of seeing them. Or maybe it’s like seeing music. Hearing scents. Tasting sound.

I’ve never been able to put into words what the Force feels like. It’s bright yet dark, loud yet silent. Overwhelming yet not.

It feels like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s a part of me and separate at the same time.

It feels like an old friend. Like a beloved family member who only wants what’s best for me.

Of course, I have no idea what the Force considers to be best for me. Trying to make sense of the Force is like trying to make sense of a never ending cacophony. One that’s somehow the most harmonious music in the galaxy at the same time.

I suppose time will tell what it has in store for me. Right now, that idea doesn’t scare me. Right now I don’t fear the unknown.

I trust that the Force will help me escape this hellhole. I trust that it will make me happy.

And if it doesn’t help me, I’ll escape Jakku myself. I’ll find a way to be happy with or without it.

Opening my eyes, I look up at the night sky. At the uncountable stars shining in the darkness, so much more vibrant than those in my previous life. So much more alive.

I’m going to go out and see as many as possible. I’m going to leave Jakku, and then I’m going to explore the galaxy. I’m going to fly through space and visit as many planets as I can.

I’m going to be free. The potential danger that might lead me to doesn’t matter in the slightest. Oh, I’m not going to rush into lethal danger headfirst, but I won’t let it stop me either.

Not this time.

When I look back on my previous life, I look back with regret. I look at all the things I didn’t do, all the things I let pass by me just because I was too scared to reach for them, and I curse myself for wasting my life.

I refuse to make the same mistake twice. This time I’m going to live my life to the fullest.

This time I’m going to die without regrets.

* * *

 

**Twenty Years Ago**

He looks down at the city below. At the seemingly endless abyss, the streets so far down he has no hope of seeing them. It inspires a sense of vertigo, a heady rush that makes his heart speed up in the best of ways.

It makes him want to jump off the railing and keep falling forever.

“I’d advise a bit more training before doing that.”

Grandfather’s voice doesn’t surprise him. He’d sensed him appearing behind him on the balcony. Sensed his worry and fear.

He keeps swinging his legs too wildly, making it so he needs to work to keep his balance and prevent himself from falling down the abyss.

He isn’t working hard enough. There’s already been a few times where he was convinced he was about to tip over too far, but he’s always recovered in time. Instinct kicking in without his consent.

He’s pretty sure he’d survive falling. It’s a long way down, and the Force is awesome at getting you in the right place to do whatever it is you want to do. In his case, survive. He isn’t suicidal after all. If he falls, the desire to live will overpower all else.

Yet while he isn’t suicidal, the slight uncertainty he feels over his ability to survive only makes him want to jump even more. He’s a total adrenaline junkie in this life.

He senses Grandfather coming closer. From the corner of his vision he sees him hop onto the railing, settling himself besides him. Grandfather starts swinging his legs, almost but not quite moving in time with him. He absently adjusts his rhythm to Grandfather’s, still staring down the abyss. Trying to make the fantasy of jumping erase the fear threatening to take over.

It takes awhile before he realizes Grandfather is subtly slowing down his swinging. His mimicking of Grandfather’s movements means he’s no longer in danger of falling.

If only it was that easy to keep him from Falling.

“The future isn’t set in stone, Ben.”

No, it isn’t. But some possibilities are more likely to happen than others.

Killing his parents is more likely to happen than not.

“Doesn’t mean it has to happen.”

He lets out an annoyed sigh. He knows Grandfather means well, but right now he is not in the mood for meaningless platitudes.

“I’ll have you know my platitudes are anything but meaningless. I’m a wise Jedi Knight.”

“You were a Sith,” he says, for once not amused by Grandfather’s fooling around. The pain his retort inspires causes a flicker of shame but for the most part he just feels tired. Tired, and afraid.

He doesn’t want to kill his parents.

He doesn’t want to become a Sith.

“You’re dealing with your visions a lot better than I did.”

“A truly exceptional bar to pass.”

“Ouch.”

Grandfather’s dry retort inspires a flicker of amusement but it isn’t enough to soothe his fear by far. At least he didn’t wake his parents this time. Uncle Luke’s teachings are paying off.

“They wouldn’t mind.”

No, they wouldn’t. But they would worry. They would be afraid.

They’d try to fix what can’t be fixed.

“I take it back. You’re dealing with this even worse than I did.”

He looks up and glares at Grandfather. Grandfather actually has the nerve to give him a teasing grin, relieved by his reaction. He bites back a retort that unlike some people, he hasn’t slaughtered an entire village, but of course Grandfather still grimaces, shame and regret rising high. He knows he should shield his mind so Grandfather doesn’t pick up on his thoughts, but he just doesn’t have the energy for that.

He doesn’t want to dampen the connection with his parents. It’s already taking everything he has not to reach for them. The only reason he’s succeeding is because their slumbering minds are soothing. Calming. Peaceful. If he reaches for them, they’ll wake up. They’ll worry.

He’s already worrying enough for the three of them.

“The biggest mistake I ever made was not telling Obi-wan about my visions of Padmé.”

It really wasn’t.

“He would’ve told you to ignore them.” That’s what he did when Grandfather told him about his visions of Shmi after all.

Grandfather tilts his head back and looks up at the starless sky, the light pollution hiding them from view.

“Maybe,” he says, wistful. “Maybe not. I’ll never know because I didn’t tell him. I didn’t reach out to him. Him, and many others.”

Grandfather gives him a soft look that does nothing to diminish the blow of his next words.

“You’ll Fall if you’re alone, Ben.”

He closes his eyes and squeezes the railing as hard he can, wishing there was an edge to bite into his palms.

He knows that. In the visions where he pushes his family away, he always Falls so much sooner. He gives up so much sooner.

But...

“I Fall even when I don’t push you away.”

The confession makes he terror he’d been struggling to contain break free. When he feels his parents start to wake, he bites down his lip hard enough to draw blood, the burst of pain offering an anchor from the panic threatening to consume him. Allowing him to contain his terror enough that his parents don’t wake up fully. He doesn’t want them to see him right now. It’ll only make him feel even worse.

Grandfather hugs him, tangible love and determination enveloping him until it’s all he can sense.

It’s almost enough to hide Grandfather’s fear.

“You don’t always Fall.”

“I do in every vision I have.”

“That’s because the Force is a kriffing moron.”

Under normal circumstances he would’ve found that funny, but right now it’s taking everything he has not to let his fear consume him.

“Visions show what’s most likely to happen, _not_ what will happen.”

Grandfather’s voice is as fierce and certain as his presence. He clings to that, burrows his mind into it, barely remembering not to cling physically.

Visions of the future are possibilities, not certainties. Doesn’t change that him Falling is the most likely thing to happen.

It doesn’t change that he’s most likely going to kill his parents.

He starts crying. He knows that’s a possibility and not a certainty but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like he won’t be able to stop himself from Falling no matter how hard he tries.

It feels like he won’t be able to stop himself from killing his parents.

He cries for what feels like an eternity. The only reason he doesn’t wake up his parents is because Grandfather is shielding him.

Grandfather can’t hide his fear, no matter how hard he projects love and determination. He can’t stop him from believing he’s going to Fall no matter what.

He can soothe him. He can offer an anchor, something to hold him steady as his despair threatens to tear him apart.

He can help him calm down.

It isn’t meditation. But it’s close to it.

In many ways, it’s better.

When his tears finally stop falling, he pulls away from Grandfather’s embrace, wipes his cheeks and sucks the blood off his lip. His breathing is still deep but it's no longer unsteady. While he feels raw, vulnerable and even more tired than before, he feels a lot better as well.

Grandfather ruffles his hair, the Force that is his hand passing through the strands and making them stand on end. He feels a faint smile grow, so grateful for Grandfather’s presence. Grandfather gives a soft one in return.

He isn’t all right yet. His despair might’ve faded, but it’s still there.

He knows just what to do to get rid of it.

“Want to play a game?”

Grandfather’s smile becomes amused, relief rising high. Grandfather is still afraid, but just like his own despair, it’s faded to manageable levels.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to bed?” Grandfather asks like he doesn’t know there’s no way he’s going back to bed while feeling like this. He waves the question away.

“It’s fine. I’m not going to stay up for long.” He just wants to distract his mind before facing his dreams again. He won’t get another vision for awhile, but that doesn’t mean he can’t dream about them.

“What do you want to play?” Grandfather asks. He grins and swipes his hand through Grandfather’s arm, a thrill running through him at the indescribable feeling of the pure Force that is Grandfather.

“Tag, you’re it!”

He doesn’t give Grandfather a chance to react before vaulting off the railing, a giddy thrill running through him as he effortlessly flips through the air. He’s barely landed when Grandfather chases after him, making him laugh with delight as he runs away. Grandfather takes full advantage of his intangibility, forcing him to turn all his focus on dodging him without knocking anything over.

When their game ends, when physical exertion has chased away his despair and he finally feels like he won’t dream about killing his parents again, he goes to their bedroom and crawls into bed with them. Dad grumbles a little at being woken up, while Mom lets out a few unintelligible but soothing murmurs, a flicker of worry rising as she picks up on his need for reassurance. He’s calmed down enough that neither of them are pulled out of their drowsy state, though.

They move apart so he can squeeze in between them, and they hold him close as they return to sleep. Grandfather comes to stand besides Mom, happy, at peace, and wistful in a way only Mom can inspire. He fades away in time with her breath.

Snuggled between his parents, their slumbering minds as soothing as their physical embrace, he finally feels the last of his fear fade away.

The future isn’t set in stone. Just because the odds of him becoming a Sith are high, doesn’t mean it’s unavoidable. It doesn’t mean it has to happen.

It doesn’t mean he has to kill his parents.

He loves them. He wants them to be happy.

He wants to be happy himself.

He swore to himself he wouldn’t make the same mistake he did in his previous life. He refuses to break that promise. This time he’s going to live his life to the fullest.

This time he’s going to die without regrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *nervous cough* So... remember when I said my muse had returned? Yeah, turned out that was a last hoorah instead. But it's back now. Won't make any promises for how long, but for now, I'm once again obsessed with Star Wars. So have some more tiny Rey and Ben, and a long plot chapter afterwards.
> 
> If anyone are still around even after my hiatus, you guys rock. Hope you enjoyed.


	9. Chapter 9

After my repairs are finished and I’ve cleaned up and put on as many layers as possible, I join Finn outside. He hasn’t gotten anything to eat yet, so I grab breakfast for both us and his birds. After breakfast, Finn finishes getting ready for the day as well. Which includes putting on socks. While the fantasy of wearing boots without socks is wonderful, the reality is that his boots are kind of uncomfortable without them. But, as he points out, it’s still different. He’s _choosing_ to put on socks.

It really is amazing how well he’s dealing with his newfound freedom. He’s been told what to do his entire life, was forbidden from making choices even as simple as whether or not to put on socks. And now he’s making those choices all on his own. Yes, he’s daunted by it, but he isn’t overwhelmed. Not many could do the same in his place.

Despite how much I don’t want to, I try to call Anakin Skywalker. I’d _much_ prefer to avoid him, I’m still rattled from the asshole’s visit, but we need to know why he panicked last night.

Anakin Skywalker doesn’t answer.

Yoda does.

“Busy, Skywalker is.”

The sudden voice and presence behind me makes me spin around, Finn doing the same while reaching for his blaster. We come face to face with Yoda, sitting on the table and radiating peace and mischievousness.

“Busy with what?” I demand after recovering from my surprise. Finn puts the safety back on and lowers his blaster, though he doesn’t put it away.

“Unable to tell you I am,” Yoda says in that same serene voice, feeling incredibly entertained. I glare. His avoidance is not amusing.

“Why can’t you tell us?” Finn asks, a little wary but not hostile.

“Bound by the Force I am.”

“And the Force doesn’t want us to know what Anakin Skywalker is doing?” I return sarcastically. The gravity that rises reveals I shouldn’t have been sarcastic.

“No, it does not. A goal the Force has. A desire it wishes to fulfill. Unable to put this goal at risk, I am.”

I grimace. Despite knowing full well that he’s right, part of me still wants to call bullshit.

“Unable or unwilling?” Finn asks suspiciously, surprising me. I hadn’t even considered that Yoda might not want to tell us.

I should have. Maz might be bound by the Force, but that doesn’t mean she has no desires of her own. Why should it be any different for Yoda?

“Unable and unwilling,” Yoda corrects serenely, his mischievousness becoming dominant again. I roll my eyes, annoyed with his behavior. Which isn’t something I ever expected when talking to _Yoda_ of all people, but there you have it anyway.

I’m really not a morning person. The asshole’s visit has only made my usual mood so much worse.

I can’t believe he made me _damage my ship_.

“You do realize that isn’t reassuring, right?” Finn asks, reluctantly amused. At least one of us is having fun.

“Find some way to entertain myself I must,” Yoda says without a shred of shame. Before I can offer another sarcastic retort, he becomes serious again. “In motion many pieces are. Easy would it be for things to fall apart. Easy would it be for the Force to fail.”

Yoda hunches in on himself, a grief rising that takes my breath away.

“Tired of failing, I am.”

The softly spoken words hold a weight that makes it impossible to speak, an eternity of mistakes pressing down on me. I don’t know what those mistakes are, the impressions are too fleeting to make sense of them, but the grief over them is so strong it makes my eyes sting with the threat of tears.

Yoda lets out a sigh that holds the weight of the galaxy, before he straightens with determination.

“Trust the Force I hope you will. Disaster will befall should you not.”

With that comforting message, Yoda blinks out of existence, every trace of his presence gone.

“And now I’m terrified”

I snort, an involuntary smile growing at Finn’s wry and honest statement. He isn’t exaggerating, he really is terrified. But it’s a terror he’s used to controlling.

He shouldn’t have to control it.

I do my best to comfort him.

“He’s exaggerating.” I hope. “One mistake isn’t enough to ruin a plan of the Force by far. It takes a long string to do that.”

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that whatever the Force is planning might very well be to our disadvantage. What the Force considers to be in your best interests definitely doesn’t always match up to your own ideas about that.

My words are enough to make Finn relax. I determinedly push Yoda’s ominous message away as well. I have far too many things on my mind already. Given that the Force apparently doesn’t want us to know what’s going on, I’m going to ignore the potential disaster until I’ve recovered from the past few days. Or until I can no longer ignore it. Whichever comes first.

We go to see Luke Skywalker. Artie stays behind to continue the repairs. The worst is fixed, but Artie won’t stop until every single scratch has been fixed. I’ll help it later today, but for now, it’s time to try to convince Luke Skywalker to come back with us once more.

We have as little luck as yesterday.

“I’m not coming back.”

“And good morning to you, too,” I say in my most sarcastic voice, not impressed by his reception. We’d arrived just as he exited his hut, obviously prepared to leave, a walking stick in hand and a bag slung over his back.

The void that is Luke Skywalker looks away, his lips twitching in what could either be a smile or a scowl. Given his “greeting”, I’m betting on the latter.

Finn is smiling and absently petting Snowy as he watches us, entertained by the show.

“How was your night?” I aim at R2-D2, a much better conversational partner.

[This unit attempted to talk sense into Bright-Dork. This unit failed.]

He doesn’t seem to mind that. R2-D2 is radiating contentment, his anger from yesterday nowhere to be found.

Luke Skywalker hoists his bag a little higher and walks away without another word. R2-D2 follows him contently. I share a look of exasperation with Finn before we follow as well.

Finn tries to talk with Luke Skywalker, but when Luke Skywalker continues to ignore him, he starts chattering with his birds, a soothing background noise. It’s nice that Finn isn’t trying to make conversation with me. As he learned during breakfast, I’m not a big talker in the morning.

I’m not in an awful mood anymore either. Instead I find myself savoring walking down the path I’ve only traveled in dreams, trailing my hands along rocks and plants.

This isn’t the same as my dreams. In my dreams, the Island is an idea given shape. It’s a reflection of reality, an image of all it ever was and could be.

This time the Island is real. It’s anchored in a way it never is in my dreams, reality holding the ancient history and future possibilities steady. There’s no confusion, no inability to tell what was and what could be because I can tell what is.

It’s beautiful.

I let the currents sweep me away. I’m not blending, but I’m not quite myself either.

I’m allowing the Force to be me. Not completely, this isn’t full on mediation. Just me reveling in the connection between everything. The earth and sky, ocean and land, animals and plants. Stagnation and change, resistance and surrender, destruction and growth. A never ending and ever changing flow.

It soothes away the last of the tension caused by Kylo Ren.

When Finn’s contentment is replaced by startled realization, immediately followed by utter disgust, I pull myself away from the Force.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s going to those _things_ ,” Finn says like it’s supposed to explain things. I raise a brow in a silent demand for some elaboration.

“The sea cow things,” Finn clarifies. “He’s going to get more milk from them.”

His actual horror makes me grin.

“Guess we’re about to find out if you’re overreacting or not,” I tease, bringing up his previous claim that I’d react the same as him if I saw Luke Skywalker milk ‘those things’.

“I’m not,” Finn declares without hesitation. “You’ll see.”

His certainty rouses my curiosity. Yet when we arrive at the shore, I don’t see what’s so special about these sea cows. Sure, their presence moves in the same odd way as those of every other living being in this place, but appearance wise they look perfectly ordinary.

Luke Skywalker kneels down in front of one of the many lounging on the shore and starts milking her. She’s pretty uncomfortable with how near he is, but I’m guessing that has to do with his lack of presence, not with what he’s doing. She isn’t trying to get away from him after all. The opposite, she’s keeping still so that Luke Skywalker can milk her with ease.

“See what I mean,” Finn says like his point has been proven, his disgust even greater than before. Bird Poe grooms his hair in an effort to comfort him, while Bird Rey is looking at the sea cow like she’s considering how to best take her out.

Munchies lands next to bird Rey and wacks her wing against the back of bird Rey’s head, warning her to behave. Bird Rey glares at her but sullenly puts aside her plans of murder. Finn’s birds are hilarious.

Finn absently brings up a hand to stroke bird Rey, horrified eyes still locked onto Luke Skywalker.

“I really don’t see what’s so special about this,” I say honestly. Luke Skywalker is just milking an animal. An unusually aware one, but this isn’t exactly a torture scene.

“You don’t–” Finn says while tearing his eyes away from the sight he considers an abomination, before waving a hand at Luke Skywalker in half gesture, half flailing. Luke Skywalker continues to ignore us. “Look at it! It looks human!”

That’s what’s bothering him? That the udders look human?

Oh, I’m going to have so much fun with this.

Putting on a solemn expression, I summon a serious voice.

“Finn, you need to know something very important.”

My act makes Finn’s eyes go wide, worry starting to rise. It takes an effort to keep a straight face.

“What is it?” he demands, bracing himself for whatever I’m about to say. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh.

“A _lot_ of animals look human.”

Finn’s reaction is priceless, pure horror taking over.

“No,” he breathes with denial and revulsion. It’s enough to make me break, my act dissolving into laughter. “You mean, animals for eating? They have parts that look human?” Finn aks, my laughter not diminishing his horror in any way.

“Yes they do,” I say with a grin and chuckle at the utter disgust twisting Finn’s expression.

“I’m going back to nutrient bars,” he declares, making it clear the joke has gone on long enough. I can’t let him go back to the abomination that is nutrient bars when there are so many culinary wonders out there.

“Relax. There are more than enough animals that look nowhere near human.”

My reassurance pleases Finn immensely.

“The meat from yesterday didn’t come from a human animal, right?” he asks. When I confirm his assumption, he gains a pleased grin. “Great, I really didn’t want to give that up. Never going to drink milk though.”

Finn’s own words draw his gaze back to Luke Skywalker, now drinking. The sight causes another surge of horror and disgust. I can’t help but grin at his reaction. Who knew Finn could be so dramatic?

Luke Skywalker reveals that he hadn’t been ignoring us after all. He lets out a satisfied sigh and gives Finn a mocking smile, the emotion clear even without me being able to feel it. I’m pretty sure he purposely drank the milk so it would stain his beard, just to rile Finn up some more.

Finn’s disgust at the sight is so great it’s on the verge of becoming true nausea. I narrow my eyes at Luke Skywalker, unable to believe what he just did. Yes, I’d been teasing Finn about this myself, but mocking isn’t the same as teasing _at all_.

Two can play this game.

“How mature,” I mock back, making Luke Skywalker look at me. Luke Skywalker raises a brow before he holds out the canister of milk with clear challenge. Is this supposed to scare me?

Grabbing the canister, I take a large drink while maintaining eye contact –

Oh wow. This is really good.

Closing my eyes, I swirl the liquid around in my mouth, savoring the taste. Rich and creamy, a complex flavor on the verge of being too sweet, but there’s a tang to it that prevents it from being cloying. It’s delicious, refreshing, and surprisingly cool for having just come out of an animal.

“You actually _like_ it?” Finn says like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. I swallow down the delicious drink and open my eyes.

“This is really good.” In fact. “How often can they be milked?” I ask Luke Skywalker. I’m definitely getting some of this for myself.

“Once every three days,” Luke Skywalker says while giving me a look I can’t decipher. Being unable to sense his emotions is really annoying. His lack of presence is even worse. Even with my inability to sense his emotions, I shouldn’t be having this much trouble interpreting his expressions.

“Please tell me you aren’t planning on getting this for yourself,” Finn begs, drawing my attention.

“I’m planning on getting this for myself,” I say before holding out the canister to him with a mischievous smile. “Want to try?”

“Hell no,” Finn refuses in an instant, not amused by my teasing.

“It’s almost as good as kava.”

That catches his attention. He wavers, eyes flickering between the canister and the sea cow’s udder as sudden curiosity struggles with his revulsion. I chuckle and lower the canister.

“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to,” I say, figuring he might need to hear it.

My words have the opposite effect of what I expected. Determination and defiance overtakes his disgust.

“No, I want to try it.”

He doesn’t. But he wants to let the teachings of the First Order rule him even less.

I hand over the canister. Finn takes a deep breath, feeling like he’s about to enter battle, before he squeezes his eyes shut and gulps down a mouthful as fast he can.

Surprise and delight flares high. He opens his eyes and looks at the canister like it suddenly changed contents.

“Okay, this is really good.”

“Told you,” I say with a smile, glad that the outcome was a positive one. I expected that, but it’s still nice to have it confirmed.

Finn gives the First Order another two-fingered salute by taking a deep drink. This time he closes his eyes and savors the taste.

“Scrap the nutrient bars,” he says after swallowing, determination joining his delight. “I’m going to try out every single food there is.”

“That’s the spirit,” I say, already looking forward to the various shows his decision will cause. It’s going to be hilarious when Finn discovers something that tastes awful.

“Can I have my drink back?”

I roll my eyes at Luke Skywalker’s question, annoyed by him all over again. I don’t care that his request is reasonable, I still can’t believe he did that to Finn.

He’s Luke Skywalker. He shouldn’t be like this.

“Shouldn’t have offered it then,” I retort and take the canister from Finn when he holds it out to Luke Skywalker. I pointedly take another deep drink, savoring the delicious flavor.

Luke Skywalker gives me what I’m pretty sure is an unimpressed look. I raise a mocking brow in return. It’s not like he can’t refill it.

“You do realize we’re trying to convince him to come back with us, right?” Finn says, entertained by my behavior. “You might want to try being just a little bit nicer.”

“I might if he’d stop acting like a jackass.”

Luke Skywalker snorts. I have no idea if it’s because he’s amused or because he’s affronted. I don’t care either. He’s acting like a jackass and has ever since we arrived.

Well what do you know. I just found the family resemblance between him and the asshole.

Oh, I hurt myself with that one.

“Wait here, I’m going to get some bottles,” I say to Finn, distracting myself from the horrible turn my thoughts have taken.

Racing to my ship with the Force, I get a bag and bottles, check how far the repairs are with Artie, before I race back and land in front of Finn with an extravagant summersault just because I can.

“Showoff,” Finn says with a grin, impressed by my display.

“On occasion,” I agree, pleased with his reaction.

Finn and his birds are the only ones left on the shore. While I can’t pinpoint Luke Skywalker’s location, R2-D2 is moving towards the village. I’m assuming that Luke Skywalker is with him.

I set about milking the sea cows. Their awareness and strange Force sensitivity means they have no trouble letting me know who does and doesn’t want to get milked.

Finn has no desire whatsoever to help, but his revulsion is relatively minor. And more than worth the price of having more milk.

After filling the containers to the brim and bringing all but two back to my ship, Finn and I return to the village. Luke Skywalker is outside, busy chopping up an enormous slab of fish meat. Judging from the amount of vegetables two villagers at a nearby table are cutting up, the three of them are cooking enough for most if not the whole village.

Sprawling down a stone bench that is surprisingly comfortable, leaving enough room for Finn to sit down besides me, I take a sip of delicious milk while watching the villagers go about their day. People are cleaning, mending clothes, weaving baskets, and various other things. Companionable chatter fills the air. A group of kids is darting around the place, playing some kind of chase game.

It’s a peaceful scene. Even the dissonance caused by Luke Skywalker’s lack of presence doesn’t diminish the tangible sense of peace and contentment.

“So are we going to talk about what happened this morning?”

I grimace. That question is an excellent way to ruin my mood.

“I really want to wait a little longer.” Like a week or two. That isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Judging from Finn’s resolve, firm though not unkind, it is.

“We’re going to have to talk about it eventually, Rey.”

True. Doesn’t mean we have to talk about it right now.

“Give me a few days.”

My reply makes frustration rise. I’m starting to suspect Finn is one of those people who wants to talk things out as soon as they happen.

I’m not like that. When I get angry or upset, I prefer to get away from whatever set me off in the first place and calm down for awhile. If I don’t, my temper ruins any chance of me fixing the issue.

Given the past few days, I’m going to need a _lot_ of time to be even close to tackling any of the numerous issues concerning the asshole.

“Three days,” I offer as a concrete limit. While I’d prefer to avoid it much longer, that should give me enough time to get over the worst of my reaction and talk about this like a rational adult.

I should be able to give Finn a decent warning about what to expect when Kylo Ren does this to him.

“Deal,” Finn agrees, surprising me. Given how he still feels like he wants to talk things out right this instant, I expected him to argue. It’s nice that he accepted my compromise instead.

I give him a grateful smile and return to watching the people, content to just be. After the past days, just being is exactly what I need.

Finn doesn’t feel the same. After fidgeting for a moment, indecisive and hesitant, he becomes determined and gets up to explore the village. Some of his birds go with him, but most continue doing the various things they were doing before he got up. All of them are still paying attention to Finn, though.

Finn soon gets drawn into the game the children are playing. Judging from the way the Force shifts when a girl tugs at his hand, she’s telepathically explaining the rules to Finn. Who has no more than a fleeting moment of surprise before accepting her form of communication. His birds don’t communicate as clearly as the villager’s do, but the basis is the same.

Finn has a lot of fun with the kids. He also keeps losing. From what I can tell, the game is a combination of tag and hide-and-seek. And the hiding part includes hiding your presence, which is why Finn keeps losing.

Luke Skywalker continues cooking. R2-D2 throws the occasional good-natured insult his way, and while Luke Skywalker sometimes offers a sarcastic retort, he mostly works in silence.

I close my eyes and let the currents of the village sweep me away, a little more of the tension caused by the past few days fading away.

Eventually, Finn rejoins me, sitting down next to the bench I’m sprawled on and drinking deeply from the bottle of milk I gave him. He’s tired from keeping up with all the compact bundles of energy, but he feels invigorated as well. Some of his birds waste no time in moving to cuddle with him, joining the few who hadn’t left him. There’s a bit of a scuffle before all fourteen manage to find a position that leaves both them and Finn comfortable.

“They’re cheating,” Finn says, not minding that he lost every round. He’s as relaxed as I am.

“They’re using the Force,” I correct without opening my eyes. Which is admittedly a form of cheating, but where’s the fun in saying that?

“Is that how they kept finding me?” he asks, curious.

“Yep.” The villagers aren’t Force sensitive in the way I’m used to, but they’re more than capable of reading it. Finn might be good at hiding his Force sensitivity, but his presence is still noticeable as that of any other person. The kids have no trouble pinpointing his location.

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

The question makes me open my eyes and turn my head to look at him. I hadn’t seen that one coming.

“I want to win at least once,” Finn explains. I let out a hum of acknowledgement while thinking over his request.

The problem is that I have no idea how to even begin teaching him how to sense his surroundings. I have no idea how to begin teaching him to use the Force for anything, really. When I found Maz, I could already use the Force in a variety of ways. Oh, Maz helped me refine my technique in ways I never could’ve done on my own, but she didn’t have to teach me the basics. She didn’t have to teach me how to sense it.

Finn doesn’t know how to sense it. Or rather, he doesn’t know the difference between what his regular senses are picking up and what the Force is telling him.

So how to teach him the difference?

“What do you think the Force is?” I settle on, figuring that’s the best place to start. Can’t use the Force without understanding it after all. Well no, you can, I’ve more than proven that, but it isn’t a good way to go about it. Maz had to break me out of a lot of bad habits.

“It’s a power that makes you stronger and faster, lets you read people’s minds, and make things float.”

Well. Technically speaking, that sentence isn’t wrong.

“Amazing,” Luke Skywalker says in a voice dry as dust, drawing our gaze. “Every word in that sentence was wrong.”

Oh hell no.

“Do you want to teach him?” I snap at the jackass insulting Finn for no reason.

Luke Skywalker flinches brutally, the knife falling from his hand and he grips the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.

His reaction makes me realize what I just said. It erases my anger, a wave of too many emotions rising instead. Among which is a healthy dose of shame.

Han Solo told me what Kylo Ren did to Luke Skywalker’s students when he Fell. Bringing up that horror, no matter how unintended, is the height of cruelty.

I didn’t mean to hurt him like this.

I hesitate, not knowing what to do next. Luke Skywalker keeps gripping the table like his life depends on it. Finn’s eyes are darting between us, as uncertain as I am on how to proceed. R2-D2 lets out a worried whirr while watching Luke Skywalker, but he doesn’t say anything either. Even most of the villagers are watching Luke Skywalker with concern. It seems like the entire galaxy is holding its breath as we wait for Luke Skywalker to do... anything.

Luke Skywalker lets out a harsh breath and resumes cooking with jerky movements. I don’t need to be able to sense him to see that he’s still on the verge of a breakdown.

“So I’m wrong?” Finn asks with deliberately lightness. Deciding that the best thing to do is to pretend my blunder never happened. I look away from Luke Skywalker, following his example.

“Technically you aren’t. But that’s how you use the Force, not what the Force is.”

“Then what is it?”

Now there’s the million credit question. I could compare the Force to a thousand different things, all of them contradicting each other and all of them true. I could talk about the Force forever and never come even close to explaining it, for the simple reason that the Force is impossible to explain.

It’s impossible to understand it. The Force is too vast, existing on a scale that defies comprehension. Sentient minds just aren’t capable of grasping the whole that is the Force. We can understand parts of it, can filter individual pieces through a perspective that makes sense, but it’s like understanding what a screw is without understanding the engine it belongs to. Even Maz, who reads the Force in a way I can only dream of, doesn’t comprehend more than a fraction of what it truly is.

Yet while you can never truly comprehend the Force, you can understand the essence of it. You can understand the most fundamental truth about it.

The problem is putting that truth into words. To explain it in a way that makes you truly grasp what the Force is.

I’m not like Maz. I don’t have her way with words, her ability to explain what the Force is in a way that makes sense.

I can, however, show it.

Sliding off the bench, I settle down in front of Finn in a cross legged position and hold out my hands.

“Let me show you.”

Surprise and eagerness flare high. Finn, who’d been leaning against the bench with his legs stretched out so his birds could nest on them, now gently urges them off so he can mirror my position. His birds grumble a little but obligingly lift off. Even the ones sitting on his head and shoulders leave. Though bird Rey, who’s now glaring at me, needs Munchies to whack her on the head again before before she hops off Finn’s shoulder. She settles on the bench as a fluffed up ball of ire. Cuddles lands next to her and nuzzles her, but that only makes her fluff up even more.

Finn’s birds will never stop being funny.

Finn grasps my hands.

“Close your eyes,” I say. Finn obligingly closes his eyes. This isn’t exactly a necessity, but I’ve always found it easier to focus on the Force as a whole when not distracted by visual information.

Closing my own eyes, I focus on the subtle gravity of his presence. Even with our bond amplified by physical contact, it takes an effort to grasp just how deep his presence is. How powerful.

Kylo Ren would’ve come after him even without me caring for him.

Pushing that unpleasant thought away, I focus on coaxing Finn’s presence to twine with my own. Not as I would when blending, our feelings and thoughts are still our own, but I weave our essence together. Finn startles before he becomes fascinated, and the gravity of his presence gains an awareness it didn’t have before. So far so good.

“What do you feel?” I ask.

“I feel...”

He falls silent, struggling to translate the indescribable feeling of my presence in terms that make sense to him. I patiently wait for him to find a comparison that fits. I might not know how to begin teaching him, but I do know that it’s important to let him find his own way of translating the Force. Forcing my own translation on him would only hinder him. Not that I have a decent comparison for my own presence. According to Maz, I feel like a thunderstorm, but that isn’t how I would describe myself by far. I actually don’t have a way to describe my own presence. Not as I can for other people. Fire, music, gravity. All of it feels ill fitting when compared to who I am. Even my name doesn’t truly encompass all I am.

I’m myself. That’s the only description that feels right.

“I feel like I’m in a reactor room,” Finn finally settles on. “The static crawling over my skin, the taste of ozone on my tongue. The humming in my bones when standing next to a reactor. Placing my hands on it and feeling the raw energy contained within.”

Realization ripples through him and Finn opens his eyes with wonder.

“I feel you.”

“Keep your eyes closed,” I say with a smile, setting the example by not opening my own. It wouldn’t be a big deal for him to have him look at me if I just wanted to make him feel my presence. The opposite, the visual contact would help. But I want to show him more.

I want to show him the Force.

Finn quickly closes his eyes. Now comes the hard part.

I coax him deeper into my mind as Maz once did with me, careful to keep our emotions and thoughts separate. He’s picking up impressions from me of course, and his own emotions and intentions become even clearer than they already were, but we’re still two distinct entities.

Finn follows with ridiculous ease, not a trace of instinctive rejection to be found. I seriously thought I’d have to try a few times before he got it. It took me five tries before I could follow Maz deep enough.

He really is a natural when it comes to mental connections.

I focus on the currents around us, careful to keep the sensation away from Finn, before I deepen my awareness of myself, making my presence more noticeable to Finn. Not my concrete emotions or thoughts, but the indescribable whole of who I am. The boundaries that define me as a person, the collection of everything that makes me myself. I avoid Finn’s instinctive attempts to deepen our bond and wait until he’s gotten used to feeling my presence. Then I share my understanding of everything else.

Finn sucks in a sharp breath, overwhelmed by the flood of information. He doesn’t try to get away though, lets it wash through him with awe and wonder. Stunned by the beauty of it all.

 _What do you feel?_ I brush along his mind, careful not to distract him.

“The island,” he breathes and the words encapsulate more than any language can capture. It’s his birds and the villagers, the animals and plants. It’s the wind rustling the grass, the sunlight warming the earth, the waves crashing against the shore.

It’s the hope shining from the peak, the secrets hidden beneath stone. The slumbering heart and the dreams of times long past. The whispers of stories yet to come. It’s everything the Island is, was and could be.

“Life. Death and decay, feeding new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence.”

It’s all that and so much more, and Finn is so close to understanding that, so close to grasping what the Force is...

 _And between it all?_ I send, barely remembering to keep my touch light. His wonder has swept me away, making it feel like the first time Maz showed me the Force all over again.

“A balance. An energy. A Force.”

Yes. It’s every contradiction and every possibility, everything that is, was, could be and never has been. It’s ever changing and always the same, and Finn is so close to getting what that means...

I feel the exact moment things click into place for him, the sudden understanding changing his connection to the Force in the most fundamental of ways.

“ _The_ Force.”

 _Yes_ , that’s why it’s called _the_ Force, that’s why no one can ever understand it.

The Force is everything.

I gradually stop sharing my awareness of our surroundings and gently disentangle myself from him. Finn is still reeling from the world altering realization he was just hit by. When I open my eyes, I see that his own are open and he looks as awed as he feels.

“Whoa.”

I feel a giddy smile grow. Seeing the Force through his eyes has made the wonder of it hit me all over again.

It’s made me remember that the Force is _magic_.

“I know,” I agree in a voice as giddy as my smile.

“ _Whoa_ ,” Finn repeats, his previous eloquence nowhere to be found. I laugh, his awed reverence pushing my own delight to even greater heights. “Do you feel that all the time?” he asks, marveling at the mere idea.

“It’s a lot stronger here than usual,” I answer with a grin. “But yeah, basically.”

My answer blows Finn’s mind all over again. My grin grows.

“You get used to it.” I hadn’t even realized how much I’d gotten used to it until I saw it through Finn’s eyes. Oh, part of me never forgets that the Force is magic, but I’ve been feeling it for as long as I can remember. Maz might’ve taught me how to understand it, but she never had to teach me how to sense it.

“You can never get used to this,” Finn says, convinced he’s in the right. Which he is. My reaction now is a lot stronger than normal, but part of me never stops marveling at the beauty that is the Force.

“You get used to it for the most part,” I amend. “You’ll see.”

Finn’s eyes widen with shock as he’s hit by the realization that he’s going to learn how to feel this on his own. It’s immediately followed by giddy joy.

“Teach me,” he orders, refusing to take no for an answer. I grin.

“I will after I figure out how.” This and meditation are the first things he needs to learn. And if he can do this, meditation won’t be far behind.

“Just teach me like how you were taught,” Finn counters, full of determination to learn _right now_.

Unfortunately, I can’t teach him like I was taught.

“I was never taught how to feel the Force. I’ve always been able to do that.”

It was impossible not to. I don’t know whether the Force exists in my old universe or not, but if it does, I definitely wasn’t Force sensitive then.

I am now. And being reborn as a Force sensitive after not being one before, is the same as a blind person being reborn with perfect vision.

Finn scowls, frustration rising. It doesn’t take long before determination takes over again though.

“You can teach me something, right?”

I can’t, actually. There’s a reason I want him to be taught by Maz. Still.

“Give me a few days to think of how to approach this,” I compromise. I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to come up with a decent method by then, but at the very least I can ask Yoda and Anakin Skywalker for pointers.

Now there’s a thought I never expected to have.

Finn scowls, frustration rising high, before he lets out a resigned sigh and smothers his need to learn. For now.

“Fine. Three days, no more,” he warns. It’s cute how enthusiastic he is about this.

“Deal.” I should be able to come up with at least a couple of exercises for him by then.

My agreement is enough to mollify Finn. He moves to let go of my hands but I have a stroke of inspiration right before he does. Tightening my hold on his hands, I give him a mischievous smile.

“I don’t know how to teach you yet, but I do know how to show you something else.”

Finn’s full focus is back on me with a vengeance.

“Show me what?” he demands. My smile grows.

“Want to see how I make things levitate?”

Surprise flares high and is immediately followed by delight. He definitely wants to see.

“Yes!” he confirms verbally, giddy with excitement and anticipation. I grin.

“The Force is everything,” I say, figuring it can’t hurt to at least try to explain. “People, plants, tools, rocks. It’s all part of the same whole. You are part of the same whole. So if you want to levitate something...”

I entwine our presence again, making it as noticeable as I can. Ensuring Finn will be able to feel what I’m about to do.

Finn, his excitement and curiosity at an all time high, squeezes my hands and instinctively tightens his mental hold on me, determined not to miss a single thing.

This is another of those things I have no idea how to put into words. When I levitate things, I think of it as grasping currents and adjusting them, but while the visualization helps me to control what I’m doing, it isn’t how I make things float.

I don’t need to reach out to make things float. I’m already connected to the Force, and the Force is already connected to me.

I am the Force and the Force is me. Which means that if I want to levitate things...

I give Finn a mischievous smile.

“All you need to do is _push_.”

Finn startles violently as I send my presence surging through his, pushing both our energy along the connection between everything. It’s a pulse, a wave, a ripple that only goes as far as I want it to.

Except it’s not. It’s how I translate the indescribable feeling of becoming the connection between everything, but what I’m actually doing is... tilting my head and changing my perspective. Or rather, our perspective.

We aren’t adding energy to our surroundings. We aren’t even changing anything. Not really. We’re just looking at what’s already there in a different way.

Surprise and startled cries fill the air as everything not bolted down is lifted into the air. I’m far more focused on Finn though. He’s looking around with wide eyes, awed and delighted by the objects hovering in the air. I took care not to lift people but that still leaves a lot of things to levitate.

One of the kids is the first to recover from her surprise, and she wastes no time in hopping onto a floating table. The others quickly follow her example, jumping onto random objects, delighted by our display. Fortunately, their ability to navigate the currents means I don’t have to worry about them falling off.

The rest of the villagers recover from their surprise as well, amused for the most part, though there’s some annoyance as well.

I don’t care about that in the slightest. Finn’s wonder is a heady rush, sparking an answering joy I have no intention of denying myself.

“This is amazing,” he breathes, making me laugh.

He’s right, this is amazing. We’re lifting things with our _minds_. This will _never_ stop being being magical.

Finn’s awe lets me appreciate it in a way I haven’t in quite some time, though.

I look around with a grin, marveling at how easy it is to keep all these things in the air. Benches, baskets, tools, rocks and so much more. All of it hovering with what is for all intents and purposes no effort whatsoever. Then my gaze lands on Luke Skywalker and my grin fades.

Luke Skywalker is looking at me with fear. It’s startling and uncomfortable, and worst of all, it makes me wonder why. The only answer I can come up with is that my display of power scares him.

It scares him because it reminds him of Kylo Ren.

I return my gaze to Finn and distract myself from that awful thought. I don’t even know if it’s true, Luke Skywalker could easily be scared for some other reason. And even if my display does remind him of Kylo Ren, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a skill, not a personality trait.

I’m not like him.

“You’re definitely teaching me how to do this.”

Finn’s determined statement offers a great distraction. I grin, letting his joy chase my awful thoughts away.

“You’re already doing this,” I say mischievously. It causes confusion to rise, so I elaborate on my statement by lifting our entwined hands.

The objects rise in time with my movement. Finn needs no further explanation, realization rising high. Then he gleefully pushes our hands down. The objects lower as he does. His bright grin makes my own grow.

Finn wastes no time in fooling around with the floating objects, pulling our hands up, down, sideways, and even in a circle. All the objects mirror his movements.

He takes care not to move our hands too quickly, and the kids are skilled enough not to fall off the various things they’ve jumped on. Their laughter fills the air as Finn tests out the boundaries of his control. And it really is his control. Yes, I’m the driving force behind the push, but I purposely drew his presence along. The objects mirroring his movements? That’s all him.

Of course, I still have no idea how to go about teaching him how to do this on his own. Or anything else for that matter. Showing him how to do something, easy. Showing him how to do it on his own? That’s another matter entirely.

Oh well. I have time to figure it out. Not much, Finn needs to be able to defend himself against Kylo Ren as soon as possible. But I can afford a few days to figure out the best way to approach this. Kylo Ren is still recovering from our fight on Starkiller Base after all. We can afford to take it easy for a few days.

It’s not like we need to hurry this along.

* * *

 

_Poe wishes they could hurry this along. Unfortunately, they can’t. This is a plan that requires patience. And luck. So much luck. Every plan requires some luck of course, but this one requires far too much of it._

_The survival of the entire Resistance is at stake. Maybe even the survival of the Republic itself. Poe would feel a lot more at ease if they didn’t have to rely on fortune favoring them._

_He wishes this wasn’t the best plan they could come up with._

_Walking over to where Han is standing in front of the viewport, BB-8 trailing behind him, he halts next to Han. Han is fiddling with the bracelet around his wrist, the only show of nervousness he’s allowing himself. The bracelet is connected to the devices monitoring Leia, and Poe glances at it compulsively, assuring himself that her vitals are still steady._

_They are._

_“You can go to her,” Poe says. “I’ll keep watch while you’re gone. So will Holdo.”_

_His personal distaste at the idea of working with ‘Vice Admiral Holdo’, as she insists he call her, doesn’t matter. If Han needs to take a break, Poe will treat her with the utmost courtesy. No matter that the first thing he ever heard her say was a remark to Han about how one of Leia’s last official acts had been to demote him._

_Yeah, he isn’t letting that one go anytime soon._

_“Kid, if I have the nerve to sit around and do nothing but stare at Leia at a time like this, she’s going to wake up just so she can kill me.”_

_Poe bites down the urge to tell Han to go stare at Leia right now. He knows it’s completely irrational to expect her to wake up, but at the same time, Han is right. Leia would absolutely wake up just so she can kill him if he went to sit uselessly at her bedside at a time like this. Then she’d take over command and make everything run smoothly._

_She’d make sure all of them survive this._

_Han’s words make his own shoulders tense up, the joke hitting him too harshly as well._

_“Chewie’s watching her,” Han says before Poe can say anything to lighten the mood. His voice is casual, but the compulsive glance at the bracelet showing Leia’s vitals is anything but. Poe fiddles with the binary beacon around his wrist, taking comfort in the fact that Finn isn’t here. He’s safe._

_Poe ignores the part of him cursing that Rey isn’t here to help them._

_BB-8 rolls closer and gently leans against Poe’s leg. Offering a comfort Poe is so grateful for. He gives his buddy a fleeting smile before looking back at Han._

_“You can go join him for awhile,,” Poe repeats his offer. Han has been working his ass off this entire time. He needs a break. And taking a few minutes to stare out the viewport doesn’t count._

_Han lets out a harsh breath and rubs his eyes, the tension he’d been doing his best to hide breaking through._

_“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters, half to himself, half a scathing remark aimed at Poe. Poe resists the urge to snap that he’s only trying to help. They’re all on edge, but that doesn’t mean they can afford to let their tempers take over. The opposite, they need to keep clear heads._

_That’s a lot easier said than done._

_Han’s annoyance is fueled by worry and longing. By a desire so much stronger than the one they’re all feeling._

_Han wants to go and be with Leia. The problem is that he won’t be able to tear himself away from her if he does. They can’t afford that. They’ll be fine if Han is gone for a little while, but they need him to return. They need him to be their leader._

_They can’t do this without him._

_Which means Han is right. Poe can’t tempt him to go see Leia._

_“It’s a good plan,” Poe says, switching to a safer topic._

_“It really isn’t,” Han mutters so softly he almost doesn’t hear it, making Poe reflexively glance around to make sure no one overheard that. Han acting like their plan is obviously going to succeed is one of the only things allowing people to hold it together. If they see him falter, if they see him doubt, there’s going to be too many nervous breakdowns at best, mass panic at worst._

_To his relief, no one overheard._

_Han lets out a tired sigh before he pulls himself together. Returning to the cocky act he’s been wearing the entire time._

_“But it’s the best we’ve got. And I’ve pulled off way crazier stunts than this,” he says with a smirk. Even knowing that he’s doing it on purpose, the show of confidence eases some of Poe’s own tension._

_Han is right, he’s pulled off far crazier stunts than this. If anyone can get them out of this mess, it’s General Solo._

_“How long until we reach Crait?” he asks soft enough not to be overheard. He already knows the answer of course, is constantly checking the time, but he can’t help but want to hear it from Han._

_“Half a day or so,” Han answers like being specific isn’t of vital importance. His nonchalant act inspires a flicker of amusement, something Poe is incredibly grateful for. Anything to distract him from the despair threatening to smother him._

_It hadn’t been this bad at first. After Han gave a short but passionate speech about not letting the wannabe Empire waltz over them, there had been a renewed sense of hope. That hope was desperately needed when Han gathered the surviving senior members, Poe included, and they started brainstorming about how to get out of this disaster with their lives intact._

_The problem is that they have no significant offensive capabilities. The weapons of their ships aren’t strong enough to break through the shields of the Destroyers, and while they have some fighters left, those aren’t strong enough by far to take out the Destroyers. Oh, they might get one of them, two if they’re insanely lucky, but that’s it. And they don’t stand a chance in hell of even touching Snoke’s flagship._

_Which means their best bet is retreating somewhere safe. With the First Order somehow tracking them through hyperspace, that order is a lot taller than it has any right to be._

_They’d discussed a lot of options, before eventually settling on Holdo’s plan. Pretend that they’re running to their doom, while secretly running off to an old Rebel base on Crait instead. With any luck, the ruse won’t be discovered until after the Raddus has been destroyed. With even greater luck, the First Order won’t realize that Crait is the planet they’re hiding on._

_The plan seemed solid when they came up with it. Or, well, not solid, but the best they could do under the circumstances._

_It offered the best chance of survival._

_Except it no longer feels that way. Now that Poe has finished dispersing orders, now that everyone has been given their respective tasks and he can do nothing else but wait, the plan feels like a farce._

_It feels like they’re just pretending that all of them aren’t going to die._

_“You should get some sleep, kid.”_

_Han’s words, gentle for all that they’re spoken like they’re no big deal, draws him out of his thoughts._

_“Couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Poe says with a wry smile, careful to stop it from turning into a grimace. He’s never been good at waiting around, no matter how necessary it might be. This time is even worse than usual. This isn’t a normal mission, isn’t a situation where only a few of their people are at risk. This time everyone is at risk._

_This time they’ve already lost so many. Ackbar, Brance, Stubbs, Navin, Priyanga and so many others. If he goes to sleep, Poe knows their faces are going to haunt them._

_Even awake, Tallie’s face won’t stop haunting him._

_She’d been looking at him. She’d been tense and impatient and wordlessly telling him to hurry. Did she even realize what was happening when the fighter crashed into the hangar?_

_Had she even realized that she was about to die before the explosion consumed her?_

_“Then get some rest,” Han says without mercy, a blessed distraction from his thoughts. “You’re useless to me if you can’t think straight.”_

_The words are pragmatic, kind, and so similar to something Leia would’ve said that it makes his throat tighten painfully._

_BB-8 lets out an agreeing sound, but it doesn’t bother to vocalize that it thinks Han is right. His buddy has given up on trying to get him to rest. For now._

_BB-8 is as tired as the rest of them. It’s lost as many friends as the rest of them._

_It almost didn’t make it out of the explosion. His buddy almost died._

_It still could._

_Pushing that awful thought away, Poe clears his throat and manages to summon a cocky smile. He gently pushes back against BB-8 at the same time, both to offer his buddy some comfort and to comfort himself._

_“I can say the same for you, old man.”_

_The scowl Han gives him inspires another blessed flicker of amusement._

_“Why does everyone keep calling me old? I’m not even seventy.”_

_“It might be your grumpy old man routine,” Poe helpfully points out. Han does often act like someone twice his age after all._

_Han’s scowl grows, but unlike before, his annoyance is fake._

_“Watch it, kid.”_

_Because calling him a kid definitely doesn’t make Han sound old._

_“I’m sorry, General,” Poe says, putting on an act of mock deference. “You’re right. The elderly should be treated with respect.”_

_Han rolls his eyes with false annoyance, a real smile tugging at his lips. Poe mentally pats himself on the back for a job well done._

_They can’t afford to have their leader break down even a little. Han’s act of having everything under control is vital to the plan’s success. Which Han knows of course, but not giving into despair is a lot easier said than done._

_“Go bother Leia, smartass.”_

_Poe falters, caught off guard by the offer. Order?_

_“Who knows, she might wake up just to teach you some manners.”_

_Definitely an order. One Poe has no intention of obeying._

_“General, really. Who do you think I learned it from?” he counters with a smirk. Han snorts, another smile tugging at his lips. “Besides, Leia would kill me as well if I sat around and did nothing,” he continues, revealing that he has no intention of obeying Han’s order._

_Han’s faint smile fades and he gives him a serious look._

_“This isn’t a request, Commander,” he says, the use of his rank making Poe straighten into a more formal position. “You need to rest.”_

_Poe barely resists the urge to scowl._

_“I’m fine.”_

_“You almost died when the hangar got blown up,” Han returns without mercy, and this time Poe can’t stop a grimace from breaking free. The similarity to how Leia would’ve said it makes the reprimand even worse. “You need to rest. You’ll be a liability otherwise.”_

_Poe glares and bites back the instinctive retort trying to escape him. Instead he carefully chooses his words, ensuring his arguments are rational and solid._

_“The medics gave me the okay to leave. I’m banged up but nothing more. I can keep working.”_

_The fact that his entire body feels like a bruise is of no consequence._

_“You’re running on stims and painkillers,” Han says like everyone isn’t running on stims. What does it matter that Poe is on painkillers as well? He knows his limits and he hasn’t reached them yet. “Get some rest. I’m not above ordering someone to drag you to the medbay if I have to.”_

_For a moment, Poe debates on arguing further. Then he lets out a harsh breath and closes his eyes._

_Han is right, he needs to rest. Yes, he can keep working, but he won’t be at his best if he does. He can’t do that to the others. They need him to be Commander Dameron, not Poe On The Verge Of Losing His Shit Dameron._

_Which means he has to follow his own orders and get some rest, just like everyone else. They need to be fresh in case something goes wrong during the evacuation. Or as fresh as is possible under the circumstances at least._

_“Fine.”_

_BB-8 whirrs with surprise before letting out a happy beep._

_[This unit is pleased Friend-Poe has reinstated his survival protocols.]_

_“Thanks, buddy,” he says dryly, relieved that BB-8 is sassing him like usual. Then he gives Han an unyielding look, making Han turn serious as well. “You need to get some rest as well.”_

_The Resistance doesn’t need Commander Dameron nearly as much as they need General Solo._

_“Amilyn has already threatened to slip me a sedative if I don’t catch some shuteye soon,” Han says, returning to his act of confidence. Poe feels some of his tension ease as well. He might not like Holdo, but he won’t deny that her aid is invaluable. While Poe was running around the ship and distributing orders, she was communicating with the other captains and doing the same. Leaving Han free to wander the bridge and have his act of confidence soothe everyone’s frayed nerves. Which in turn trickled down to the rest of the ships and prevented mass despair from taking over._

_Now that he knows Holdo is ensuring that Han won’t push himself too far, Poe feels a little more at ease at getting some rest himself._

_“I’ll let you know if there’s any change with Leia,” Poe has to say, despite knowing the words have a fair chance of landing wrong._

_For once, he's in luck._

_“You, Chewie and the whole damn ship apparently,” Han says, not even close in managing to hide his relief. He gives another compulsive glance at Leia’s vitals, Poe doing the same._

_They’re still steady as before._

_Poe almost blurts out that Leia is going to be fine but he catches himself just in time. While Han understands people’s need to assure themselves that Leia is fine, hearing it every single time he talks with someone has the opposite effect on him, worsening his worry to the point it threatens to consume him. Which people have picked up on of course, meaning there’s now a delicate balance of mentioning it every so often in order to reassure themselves, but not so often that it causes Han to break down._

_This whole thing is such a fucking mess._

_Instead of reminding Han of his worry for Leia, Poe straightens and gives a respectful salute._

_“General,” he says before turning around and leaving the bridge. BB-8 follows contently, in a noticeable better mood now that Poe has, as his buddy put it, _reinstated his survival protocols_. _

_He sees Holdo hand over a pad to D’Acy on his way out. She meets his gaze, her expression cool and haughty as always. It raises his hackles but Poe forces himself to ignore it, giving a polite nod instead. Holdo replies in kind but that only aggravates Poe further. He knows his reaction to her is irrational, knows it’s a result of the stress they’re under, but that doesn’t lessen his feelings in any way. A large part of him wants to act like a disrespectful little shit just to spite her._

_Which is a solid indicator that Han is right and he needs to get some rest. Disliking his superior is fine and well, but he’s edging towards letting it interfere with his duty. That’s something none of them can afford right now._

_Poe isn’t planning to sleep. He can’t. If he does, he’ll drown in all the lives lost. But he can sit down for awhile, get some real food in him, and try not to worry about their odds of survival. He can talk to Leia about unimportant things, get sassed by BB-8, and distract himself from the feeling that they’re running to their doom._ _Who knows, he might even be able to convince himself that they’re going to survive this after all._

_Maybe a miracle will happen and Leia will wake up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I present, gratuitous Force headcanon, padawan!Finn, and a shameless fix-it for the Poe/Hondo subplot. The butterfly effects are finally starting to show.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
> 
> Big thanks to texaspeach for all the support given!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always brighten my day :) So do [reblogs](https://loekas.tumblr.com/post/172767365766/yet-another-star-wars-fanfic-the-lost-jedi-in/)
> 
> My [tumblr](https://loekas.tumblr.com/)


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